


Deeper into the Dark

by LopsidedTurtle



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Depression, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Has Issues, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2018-07-18 14:46:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 37,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7319407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LopsidedTurtle/pseuds/LopsidedTurtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Protect those who cannot fend for themselves. Protect the weak. Fight for your country. Fight for the world. Captain America has been the "Star-Spangled-Man-With-A-Plan" from the moment that serum made contact with his body. He knew what to do, where to go, and how to best protect the people who mattered most to him. But how do you protect someone in cryosleep? How do you save people when you can't leave the only sanctuary you have? What does the man-with-a-plan do when there is no mission left?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter one: Deeper into the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Updates every Wednesday. Enjoy!

Steve is constantly at a loss for words now.

After Bucky went back into cryo, Steve wanted to go back for the only other people who meant anything to him, but he had no idea where they might be held. To lose Peggy, and subsequently Tony and Natasha (though not in the same way, of course) to this fight was killing him. Watching the glass freeze Bucky away from his reach, watching him go somewhere Steve couldn’t follow left him feeling like an exposed nerve. The only way he had ever found to take away that itchy raw feeling way to get sent off on a mission, no matter how trivial. But the last three years had been minimal missions in his hunt for Bucky.

 Now, he had so very little to fill the void. And what a void it had become…. He could think of nothing except a way to get the code words out of Bucky’s head. The more he pondered, the deeper he fell into that void. He was lost in it now, and he succumbed to the desire to simply lie in bed all day and float away, deeper and deeper away from the world.

However, this was not on the conditions that T’challa had taken him in with. And this he knew, but without a purpose, he could not find the will to care. From the very first day of his awareness, he had a mission. Protect the weak, despite being worse off than most victims. It progressed to protecting the weak **and** his country. He became a symbol: the star-spangled-man-with-a-plan. He fought Hydra, and by extension, the Nazi’s.

When he awoke, his mission was to catch up. 70 years left him feeling lost and left behind. Hence why the runs with Sam meant so much to him; it was a way to feel ahead, when he was drowning in a new world. The mission after that was to protect, once more, though the threat was no longer human. Protect the world from false gods and aliens. Then he was back with a new mission: protect the world from an assassin and from Hydra (all over again). And this he did.

Only to find out that the person who meant the most to him was still alive. Broken, battered, with one less arm and a whole lot less sanity, but by god, he was alive. So that was his mission. Bring Bucky home to him. Have him back; put a piece of the old world into this cold, unforgiving one was the only thing he was capable of focusing on. Then to lose him again, to the only place Steve could not follow, to the only place where Bucky would leave him without a mission, without a purpose.

This left Steve all the time in the world to think about what Ross had said. About how many were calling him dangerous. How many lives had been snuffed out by his hasty actions, and how many more were left in shambles?

It weighed on him, enough that even the super-soldier serum was not enough for him to lift it.

Thus, he drifted away, ever deeper into the dark.


	2. Chapter two: Empty Space

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the first chapter was incredibly short, so I decided to update sooner than I would have so that you guys might get a better understanding of what the story is going to be about. Obviously the story is going to be focused on Stucky, but there's quite a bit of set up to do, so it'll be a slow burn until they actually get together. I'm planning on the story being a pretty long one, so stick around! I'll be updating probably once, maybe twice a week. It might slow down a bit when the school year starts, but I'll give some warning if it does. Thanks for reading!

Steve lay in his bed, which was nothing new. He got up to eat and pee once per day, and that was it. And that was merely out of obligation.

Besides, sinking into his bed was the only comfort available. The feather pillows made him feel light as air, absent from the laws of gravity.

This thought, as disjointed and odd as it was, was interrupted. Steve’s scowl deepened. This was the first time that anyone had bothered him in quite a while. Though time was lost to him, this change was un-appreciated. His guest came in, without any invitation on the part of Steve, or hesitation on their part.

It was T’challa. His brow furrowed when he saw Steve. Steve wondered what brought on that reaction. He supposed that it had been a while since he had showered. This caused him to frown back a T’challa, but he sat up nonetheless and addressed the man who took them in.

“Yes?”  He inquired, not really wanting to spare words on the warrior-king.

“When this all started, I told your friend Natasha that my father believed in an afterlife. An afterlife where you took the hand of Bast and Sekhmet, an afterlife where you would find peace.”

He simply stared, waiting for an explanation that could somehow make the previous statement relevant to the conversation that was apparently going to take place.

T’challa watched him for another moment before continuing on.

“I did not believe him. I believed that if you were going to achieve peace, it was going to be here, among the living. I made it my mission, increasing order in my country using the chaos of a warrior. I wanted what was best for my country. This, I am sure, you can understand. Peace through upheaval. Peace through violence. One might consider them opposites, and some days I do, but most days, they are the two sides of one coin.”

At this, T’challa paused again, studying Steve’s apathetic stare.  He decided it was appropriate to continue speaking.

“Your Bucky is a two sided coin, or so I thought. Now I think it is less black and white. He does not know who he is, nor do I know. But I am thinking he was right to be distrustful of his own mind. Recklessness with one’s body and mind is not something I tolerate.”

Again, silence fell. Steve now understood why T’challa was here. And while it was frustrating to think that anyone might be worried, he decided to play along, if only to allow the king to get his speech over with.

“I am sure you have gathered my meaning, but regardless, I will spell it out for you, that way there is no miscommunication. You are not in your right mind Cap- Steve. I think that I will require you to see a therapist each week. In return, I will give you two things, should you agree, and keep your appointments.

At this statement, Steve forced his frown to relax. The idea of being forced to go to therapy was unpleasant on a great many planes, but if this was a deal, or a mission, he could get behind that.

At the sudden softening and interest displayed clearly on Steve’s face, T’challa smiled a small, toothy grin that made Steve immediately want to take back everything, though he hadn’t even said a word to the king.

“The rules are simple. You will attend a therapy session twice a week, once on Thursday and once on a day of your choosing. That is the important part. You much choose to go visit them once a week, in addition to your scheduled Thursday visit. Seeing as today is Thursday, should you agree to the terms, I will show you to the office following our talk.”

“Now, to continue with the rules. I expect you to continue running missions, but only here in Wakanda, and of course, only at my instruction. You are not to leave the country or even my palace until I approve it. I know that is hard for you, to submit to something like that, but straying will get you, and my people killed, not to mention that it will get Barnes killed.”

“Would you like to hear what you will get in return, or am I asking too much of you?”

For a long while, Steve though about the conditions he faced.

_One_ : whether or not he agreed, he would not be allowed to leave. This was not dependent on the deal he was being offered.

_Two_ : running missions may help to relieve the overbearing guilt that kept him tied to his bed most days.

_Three_ : it would feel good to have a purpose again, even if it was forced onto him.

_Four_ : Steve could not muster the strength to trust many people these days. Despite most of them turning out okay in the end, Steve never completely trusted anyone, not after finding the weeds of Hydra growing in S.H. E. I. L. D.  But T’challa seemed to hold himself to an even more extreme moral standard than the one Steve held himself to. This left him as someone Steve could perhaps trust.

_Five_ : T’challa only said that he had to attend his therapy sessions, not that he had to participate or interact with said therapist.

All this came to mind, and after what must have been a good fifteen minutes of silence, Steve finally addressed the king.

“What is it that you have to offer me?”

“It is as I said before, I have two things. The first is easy. I have found your teammates. They are easily retrievable. I will take them into my palace, as I would for family. There would be no rules for them, this I promise. “

“The second  gift is of great value, albeit the monetary kind. I have located an engineer who is ready and willing to take on a new project: Barnes’ arm. Vibranium, with a full range of motion. It will be far better than the original. This will give him back what was taken from him so long ago. These are my conditions. Wakanda is safe enough to keep you here, but we could always use your help, Steve.”

T’challa stood, and paced back and forth across the floor, seeming like he had more to say, but he apparently held his tongue, allowing Steve to consider the offer that had been presented to him.

And that he did. The prospect intrigued him. An arm for Bucky was a huge offer, and one that Bucky would appreciate immensely if the King would follow through.  But even bigger than that, he finally had news on his team.  And the King, who was far more generous than any of them deserved, was willing to bring them in. He was willing to let Steve go get them. There was nothing left in his mind now, but ways to retrieve them. They were locked away because of him. It was his responsibility to protect them, and he had failed. Here was his second chance. He hesitated no longer.

He looked up at the king, meeting his eyes for the first time. The king stared back, and for some reason, his brow furrowed. Steve briefly wondered what the king saw on his face. Was it anger? Guilt? Peggy had once told him that he wore his emotions on his sleeve. Remembering her brought back the fresh pain of her death, and he breath caught in his throat.

T’challa raised an eyebrow, but waited patiently for Steve’s response.

For the first time since Buck left him for cryo, Steve swallowed his pain, and spoke to the king.

“Of course I will help. My first request is that the first mission I complete for you is to recover my team.”

T’challa’s face relaxed and he smiled widely.

“That was the answer I was hoping for. Thank you.”

Steve nodded, but then, found himself unsure of what to do. Luckily, the king seemed to be happy to supply the plan, at least for now.

“Get yourself cleaned up captain.  Shower, eat, and rest. I will be back in a few hours to take you to my intelligence center.  We must prove to my people that it was worth it to bring you in. They will only follow me so far.”

Again, Steve nodded. A duty to the people was one he understood.

The king offered his hand, and Steve grabbed it, letting the king pull him off the bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking I'll set Wednesdays as my official update day, but definitely check back more often as I seem to end up writing more than I plan to. The chapters are coming a bit faster than I planned on, seriously its insane. I started this story today and I've already written a good five or six chapters. Guess that's what happens when you have nothing better to do.


	3. Anchors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am beyond excited that you guys are even reading this let alone posting comments and giving me kudos. Thank you so much!

One T’challa left, Steve was once more alone with his thoughts. This was both comforting, and crushing. The urge to lay back on the bed, to not deal with the world arrested his movement for a while. Still, he remained standing, and after a few moments he forced back the blackness just long enough to remember Bucky. His face, rough and in pain, but still smiling. The way he had looked before going back into cryosleep.  The rippling waves receded for a moment, enough to allow him to remain on his feet.

Despite the comfort that would surely follow falling back into the void, there was a plan in motion now. There were things to be accomplished. The waves receded further, and he found that once more, he could place one foot in front of the next. He let auto-pilot take over. Showering and eating were easy, and did not require any thought.  So he devoted mindspace to his teammates. He wondered where they had been placed, and if T’challa would allow him to go get them. He wondered what condition they were in. A fair amount of people wanted them dead, and while Ross would not give the command to kill them, he could not begin to imagine what else may have been done to them.

He also wondered about Maximoff. She was strong, and if she didn’t want to be contained, she would have left. He wondered what state she must be in to be contained. This forced his hands to curl into fists, which was apparently the wrong move, when the shampoo bottle in his hand cracked and exploded all over the shower. He scowled, but cleaned up the best he could and finished his shower.

Climbing out, he let his thoughts wander again. He considered the situation with Bucky. He knew that there was someone working on a translation of the book which contained the code-words. T’challa was hoping that there would be something on how to de-program the winter soldier. This line of though seemed far too hopeful to Steve. Why would the Russians include a de-programming process when Bucky was completely in their control? But surely there was some way that they could remove the words from his memory?  Drying off, He considered the offer of a new arm. He hadn’t even considered how Bucky might feel. Perhaps he wanted to keep his body as it was? Would he appreciate a new arm, or would he see it as another way to control him? Would it only serve as a reminder of the lives he had taken? This was what occupied Steve’s mind as he dressed, pulling a light grey tee over his head, and pulling on a pair of decent jeans that he briefly hoped was nice enough to wear in front of a king.

He moved into the kitchen and considered when the last time he had eaten was. The sudden emptiness of his stomach indicated it had probably been several days. Again, he frowned. This couldn’t be right, but then again, time had seemed off, when you didn’t have to see the sun, nor did you try to keep up with the passing days. He supposed it was likely that he had been lying in that bed quite a bit longer than he originally assumed. Perhaps it was no great wonder that T’challa had come to talk to him. This was concerning, and for the first time since he and Bucky had arrived in Wakanda, Steve gave thought to his own health.

Evidently, there was a reason to be concerned. Steve grabbed a protein bar and a glass of water. Clearly, someone had been stocking his kitchen. He opened the fridge to find it full of the various ingredients he used to use for cooking back at Stark Tower. This intrigued him. How had the warrior-king known what he had eaten? Regardless of his sources, given that he still had time to kill before the King returned, he decided to make food. Eggs and bacon seemed a good option, since both were fast and easy (and Steve lacked the ability to cook). He pulled out a dozen eggs and friend them up while the oven was heating up. Again, he let his mind wander back to the new set up.

The king wanted him to run missions. This worried him. Of course, the man seemed trustworthy. What little he had seen of the king’s actions seemed like if he had a goal, he would pursue it full force. In this, they were alike. And their goals seemed to be quite similar: protect the weak, fight for your country.

As he ate, he contemplated the fact that he no longer had a shield, or even a decent suit. How well could he serve this man if he no longer carried the shield? Granted he was a super-soldier, but he wasn’t invincible. Would T’challa ask more than he could deliver?

This plagued his thoughts for the rest of the meal, which he ate in silence. He let these thoughts consume him, and he sat at the counter just staring at the wall for a good amount of time. He was shaken from his thoughts by a man entering the room. Glancing at the time displayed on the oven, he found that he had been sitting there for nearly three hours.

He turned to look at the man, which unsurprisingly was T’challa. The king nodded in approval at Steve’s appearance. Something made the younger man smile, and Steve watched him questioningly for a moment. When there was no explanation for the smile, Steve stood, and greeted the king with a simple   
“Your highness”

His words echoed the ones he had spoken when T’challa had revealed himself to be the Black Panther, and while he didn’t know why, Steve decided this was important.

The warrior-king raised his head in acceptance, replying with “Captain Rogers”

 The man gestured towards the door. “Let us leave. The therapist is ready and awaiting you already. I will give you one last chance to back out. You must hold true to your word. I hear this is something you do well.”

The need to give back into the bed was as strong as his desire to breathe yet despite this, Steve nodded and walked out the door, almost ready for what would come next.   



	4. Calm the Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter is short, but I have an long one coming up here on Wednesday. Happy fourth you guys. Have a totally-eventually-going-to-figure-out-he's-gay super soldier.

Once the door is shut, T’challa seems to relax quite a bit, as if he had been unsure that Steve would actually follow him out.

The king gestured foreword, and together they walked, side by side. For a several minutes the king was silent, but he seemed to have quite a bit on his mind, and Steve knew he would begin talking soon enough. 

For a moment, Steve tried to put himself into the man’s mind. He had just lost his father, and spent a good amount of time away from his country to pursue the killer. Only to find he nearly killed an innocent man. It seemed a lot to think on, and for a few seconds, Steve was glad that the king was with him. He seemed a good man, and one that Steve could easily befriend.

As if echoing his thoughts the king said in a quiet voice “You are a good man Steve. I feel that we could easily be friends. I am hoping that you do not resent me too much for forcing this decision on you.”

A part of him returned, just long enough to remember that he was supposed to be polite, like his mother taught him. So he replied with a smile “No. I would have done the same in your shoes. And you know, a friend does sound nice in this age. My friends are all where I cannot reach them. “

“Yes I imagine so. But should all go well, we will have your teammates back by your side once more. They are free to leave Wakanda of course, but I am thinking that they might find my palace the safest place to be. “

Steve is blown away by the offer. To house so many volatile super-humans in one palace, and to break the law doing so was much more than he ever expected. He voiced his thanks to T’challa.

“Why are you doing all of this? You didn’t even have to take me and Buck in, let alone offer to break the law again in order to house the rest of my team.”

T’challa steered him around a corner, and for a moment, Steve was taken aback. The hall was long, dotted with doors that towered to the ceiling, which were nearly 100 feet up. The windows towered just as high, and many opened into balconies that extended into odd shapes, almost like teardrops.

T’challa waited to answer his question until Steve turned away from the scenery to look at him.

“You have seen how I live. Wakanda is rich. My people are strong, well fed and happy. But crime does not cease here, just like anywhere else in the world. I want true safety for my people. I want true safety for the world. I told the red-headed girl, Romanoff, that I did not approve of the politics of the Accords. But looking back at the situations, I see how much my father was convincing me. Look at the Black Panther. It is a symbol to my country. It was a way to represent everything that Wakanda stood for, a way to protect my people. The accords would force me to give up my autonomy. I cannot submit to their will, when the safest hands are still my own.”

Steve’s own words, echoed back at him. He chuckled, and T’challa looked over at him.

“Do you find my statement to be false?”

He shook his head. “No, no it’s not that. I’m just surprised. I said much the same thing. To my country, I was the same symbol.  I stood for the people, for the little guy. The accords were never something I could agree to. Time and time again, I have seen what happens when you give the power to an organization. They use you for your power, to push their own agendas.”

At this T’challa nodded.

“I hope you do not feel the same about me. I will not lie to you, so long as you stay here. Should you ask, I will always tell you my intentions, for any mission I send you on.”

At that, he turned, facing a door with the label “Psychiatric Evaluation, Dr. Skivorski” with a sign beneath that labeling the room as room 237.

Steve hesitated, unsure for just a moment, what was going to be expected of him. However, now that he was out of his room, with a given purpose (one: save his friends, two: begin running missions), it was almost better than lying in bed all day. Almost.

T’challa faced Steve and said “You had your chance. I allowed you one opportunity to back out. You no longer have that option. I hope that Dr. Skivorski will help you.”

At that statement, Steve tried to protest “I am fi…” but T’challa cut him off with a hand on his shoulder.

“No man, especially one who was as active as you, willingly lies in bed all day. Do you remember what I said to you earlier?”

Steve arched an eyebrow, wondering what the king was referring to.

“I said that we could easily be friends. I meant that. I am hoping that you will trust me here, as a show of faith to our coming friendship, that you were not fine. Nor are you fine. Please, allow me this.”

Though Steve thoroughly disagreed with the king, he pushed all his arguments (I needed to rest, it was vacation, he was only a little sad no big deal) down, and nodded his head.

With a smile he hoped seemed genuine “I trust you. If you say so, I’ll go.”

Returning the smile, T’challa released his shoulder and opened the door to the therapist’s office.

Despite the sinking and angry feeling he held tightly in his chest, Steve entered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I know that up until this point, the story has been super slow. The next chapter will be slow, but it’s going to pack in a whole ton of info. Plus it’s all set up. After that, shit picks up real quick: saving friends, running missions, and a whole ton if other things will occur (but that would be spoilers). The idea for the story is going to be Steve + Bucky in recovery, focusing on Steve. Plus an obnoxious amount of angst and pining, followed by fluff inside of missions/action.  I assure you, it will be long and painful, but they will end up together. It’ll just take awhile for those idiots to get there. I’m setting my sights for thirty chapters, but in all likelihood, it’s probably going to end up in the fifties or sixties (maybe even more???)


	5. Fragile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I just thought I would mention that all the chapter names are songs. I am a metalhead, but not all are metal. They’re just the songs I listen to when I write. Chapter two is by The Story So Far (A guilty pleasure band). Chapter three is a cover song (dunno the original, but I love the Elizabeth Grace cover). Chapter four is by Alter Bridge. This chapter is a Tech N9ne song (pretty much the only rap group I enjoy). Anyways, I’ll add the band’s name in the notes each time. ALSO: this is the last slow chapter, I swear.

Upon entering, Steve’s breath is taken away.  The entire west wall is glass, and because it was nearly the end of the day, the sun was setting in just the right position to light the room. The jungle outside the window was a million different shades of green, and Steve could even see several birds of paradise, their colorful wings standing out brilliantly against the muted tones behind them.

Inspection of the room was just as surprising, and just as breath taking. The east wall, where the door was located, painted as a scene of a panther hunting. It was so beautiful, and he found himself almost moving his hands to run along the paint strokes. The south wall was covered in bookcases, all of with were filled to the brim, nearly overflowing with books. There were cozy spots along the west wall obviously meant for relaxing and reading. The north wall had a desk, plus a huge monitor set-up, much like Tony had at the Avengers headquarters.

Perhaps the most shocking of all was the man standing by the desk. Well, lounging would be a better word. He leaned against it, seeming completely at ease, and awaiting Steve’s attention. And all at once, he had Steve’s attention. The man was easily six foot four, probably taller, and built much like a super-soldier. But perhaps the most shocking quality would be his very long, very green hair. It seemed to be his natural color. His overall appearance shocked Steve, enough that he hesitated a few moments longer before approaching the man. He seemed like the kind of guy who would have beaten him up in a back alley pre-serum.

But as he approached the psychiatrist, the man smiled, and it was the most genial smile he had seen since Sam. Instantly, Steve relaxed. This man, whoever he was, clearly was a god man, despite his odd appearance. They shook hands, as T’challa introduced them to one another.

“Doctor, this is Steve Rogers, although I’m sure you know him as Captain America. Captain, this is Doctor Skivorski. “

He turned to Steve and said “Remember our bargain. Keep your appointments, and I will have the arm made up for Barnes.”   At that, Steve nodded, and seeming satisfied, T’challa left the room, walking at a swift pace.

This left him alone with the odd doctor, who smiled again, and gestured to the seat in front of his desk.

“Do you prefer to sit or stand?” He asked. His voice was deeper and slower than Steve had expected. It seemed a fitting voice for a psychiatrist.

“Sitting. Thanks, Dr. Skivorski.”

“Oh, his majesty” At that, he paused and grinned again, adding a side note “I’ve never known a king before” before continuing with his previous line “He gave you the clinical introduction. T’challa can forget to be personable sometimes. Everyone calls me Doc Samson.”

 _Ah. The hair. Gotcha…_ Steve thought.

“Alright Doc Samson it is then.” He replied, trying to sound as positive as possible. The brief hope that perhaps he could fake his way out of the sessions was crushed by the man’s following statements.

“We have a friend in common, actually. I’m sure you know Doctor Banner?”

Steve nodded, wondering who this man really was. The connection between Banner and the Doc made him realize something. The man’s hair was the exact same shade of green as the Other Guy.

“Well he and I are good friends. At one point, Banner managed to get his Mr. Hyde to go away by siphoning off the gamma radiation that made him change. Unfortunately, the process had an unexpected side effect on me, as I was his partner for the experiment.  I absorbed the radiation, and it had its side effects. Namely: the hair and my body. I don’t have an alternate state of being like Banner, but I do have powers.”

Steve tried to absorb all the information. He wondered at how little he really knew about Banner. He was a kind, if shy and far too intelligent for Steve to really understand half the time. He’d wanted to get to know the man better. It seemed that perhaps he could siphon information about Bruce from the Doc.

However, this thought was immediately stopped in its tracks with Doc Samson’s next statement.

“However, despite our many similarities, we are not here to talk about me, nor our mutual friend. We are here about you. Why are you here, Captain?”

It seemed like an innocent enough question, the way he phrased it. As if he were just a friend, concerned about why his friend was going to therapy. Steve saw right through it, and thought quickly about how he would phrase his next statement.

“Look Doc, it’s nice of you to offer. Heck, it’s nice that T’challa set all of this up. But really, it’s an overreaction. I’m fine. There’s no real good reason for me to be here.”

“T’challa sees it differently.” Samson replied.

“T’challa expected me to be a soldier. He’s never seen me as a regular person, I think.”

“Oh I disagree. I think he saw you as a friend. I think he saw that you were acting wildly out of character.”

“Acting out of character? How would he know what my character is? The man never met me before he tried to kill my best friend.”

“Forgive me Rogers, but you are easily readable, easily predictable. Simply reading about you made it obvious that you are not, nor were you ever, the type to lie around all day, shirking your duties. Anyone, regardless of how long they knew you, would be able to tell it was not normal.”

Steve just shrugged. Why did everyone see it as a problem?

“I never had the chance to rest before. I was just catching up on the relaxing that I missed.”

The doc just _hmmed_ before shrugging, and saying “Whatever the case, no one needs to just laze about all day. I supposed we don’t have to talk if you don’t want. I get paid either way, and you keep your bargain with the King.”

At that, he gestured to the expansive book collection along the wall. “If you want, go get a book, and read. The sessions are about two hours long, so you’ve got some time to kill before you can leave. Help yourself.”

Steve walked over to the bookcase and examined the selection. There seemed to be a decent organization system, which sorted the books by subject, and by alphabetical order within each subject. Steve looked for a book on history. Given that he’d been in the ice for seventy years, and had been caught up in being Captain America after being thawed out, he knew next to nothing about contemporary history. He always wondered how they won the war, and what had happened since.

Clearly it was quite a bit, given the extensive number of history books available. He selected one titled “The 20th century, a concise summary of US History” and sat down is a large, and upon sitting down, comfy green couch.

Before settling in, he glanced up at Samson, who was watching him with narrowed eyes. When Steve met his eyes, the doctor nodded at him before stepping behind his desk, where he began typing rapidly into the computer.

Steve scowled at the typing; sure that it was notes on his behavior. The analysis was irritating, and frightening. What did the doctor notice? What could he be typing?

Steve forced the thoughts from his mind to focus on the book in his hands. This was not too difficult, as the book was engrossing. He made it all the way through to the start of the 1930’s. Of course, he was vaguely aware of what was happening during the beginning of the century, but the way the author brought light to the politics of World War one was fascinating.  Time flew, and before he knew it, the session was over, and T’challa was on his way to pick him up from his therapy session.

Apparently, there was something he urgently needed to discuss with the Captain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Ha-ha! Leave you with a cliff hanger (kind of). Anyways, here’s where the story picks up. The doctor is a real marvel character, by the way. He doesn’t have any connections to T’challa in the comics, but I thought he would make a good fit into this story. Thanks for reading!


	6. In Honor of Reason

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is a song by Fleshgod Apocalypse. Enjoy the long(er) chapter!

Doc Samson seemed to be startled by the urgency of T’challa’s message, so he shooed Steve out of his office, and told him to wait for the King out front.

Steve complied easily, hoping that it had nothing to do with Bucky, or the upcoming rescue mission for his friends. His hoped were crushed as T’challa rounded the corner, already in his Black Panther suit. The king’s face was clearly upset, which sent a shiver of anticipation down his spine. What had the king so worried?

He ran to meet the king, who was walking as quickly as he could. T'challa immediately steered the soldier into a room. Which, upon entering, Steve realized was an elevator, designed to look like any other door. The elevator required two key cards, one retinal scan, a password, and a fingerprint scan before it would move, leading Steve to realize they were likely going somewhere very secret, or at the very least heavily guarded. As the king was unlocking the floor they would be traveling to, he began talking in very rapid accented English that was difficult to understand.

Nevertheless, Steve listened intently as the king spoke, his horror growing.

“You know we have located your friends. You also know that we were intending to retrieve them, bring them somewhere safe. We knew they would not be treated well, however, none of us expected this. Once they had captured Barton, Lang, Maximoff and Wilson, we knew they would be taken to a max security prison. Not exactly great treatment, but expected. We figured out they are being kept in a facility called the Raft. A prison designed for the enhanced. Please understand, this was only made clear to me yesterday. I made sure I knew how to approach the situation before telling you, but I did not keep it from you for long, obviously. However, new Intel is in regarding the situation.  They were each sentenced to prison time, each a life sentence. They were too dangerous to release to the public. We assumed that was the extent of the sentence. Our informer tells us that they added a sentence for Maximoff. She has received the death penalty for her involvement in Ultron’s plan. They have plans to execute her within the week, with the likely date being two days from now. The plane ride there is nearly eighteen hours alone. Should they move the date or time, we could easily be too late.”

The king’s words made Steve’s knees weak with fear for the young girl. Her story was so similar to his own, and he had grown extremely fond of the woman while he lived with her. The thought of losing her, of failing her, again, was almost enough to push the void back into the forefront of Steve’s mind. However, he kept it at bay, knowing that allowing himself to fall in would certainly mean death for the young one.

The elevator had been moving, not that Steve’s pure terror and guilt had let him notice, and suddenly the door was opening to a small room. It had several huge monitors, and seemed almost like a bunker, with reinforced soundproof walls that had hundreds of shelves, which were full of food and weapons. The monitors had two people, clearly advisors, who both began speaking as soon as the king entered the room. Both stopped talking when they saw the captain follow T’challa out of the elevator. They politely greeted him, but returned to their rapid fire Wakandan speech on the situation at hand. The king put a hand up, to stop them from continuing so that he could address them, and Steve. To Steve, he said “This is my safe house. Please, grab any weapons or armor you will want to take with you for the break in. We even have a shield of Vibranium if you choose to wield it. “

The king turned to the two advisers on screen and said “Please, use English. I trust Steve wholeheartedly on the matter, and he needs to hear the plans so that he can aid us in the rescue.”

Both advisers began speaking again, just as rapidly as before, but now in English. For that Steve was thankful, but for the time being, he had to block them out in order to decide what he needed for the mission.

However, his ears still picked up the essential phrases like “nearly 200 men guarding the facility” and “three levels, all underwater”.

Now armed with that information, he turned all of his focus to the selection of armor and weaponry. While the shield had always been his choice before, he hesitated to pick one up now. They would expect it from him. Instead, he chose baton, which again, appeared to be made of Vibranium. For a second, Steve wondered how much the country must have to have so many items made of the apparently not-so-rare metal. He turned to look at an area that had several suits. Many were in Black Panther style, but he spotted one towards the end that was a simple one. The fabric was black as well, but flexible and had multiple loops and pockets where he could easily store the baton, and any other supplies he would need. It was almost reminiscent of the Winter Soldier suit, as if some designer here had attempted to copy the design.  While he hated to be reminded of Hydra, the suit was the most practical option that would fit his body type, and it would be nice to have an odd reminder of Buck while he was away from the Palace. He quickly stepped behind a set of shelved laden with some sort of canned food and books, and changed out of the casual civilian clothes he was currently in.

His estimation of the size was correct, and the suit was like a second skin. It was as comfortable as his old Captain America suit, but more inconspicuous, and with much more storage.

He went to the shelves, looking for additional items he might want for the trip. He grabbed a handful of small round balls that, according to the description attached to the box, if thrown at a human, and it made contact with the person’s skin, would cause them to go unconscious via a faint poison that could knock anyone out for a couple of hours. He placed these into a pouch set on his upper thigh.

Further examination of the shelves revealed a secondary baton, which Steve shoved into his boots, and a bean bag shotgun that would send even the strongest man to his knees. The gun he attached to his back, and the original baton he strapped to his right thigh.

All in all, he was more than well prepared for one of the most imperative missions of his life. He walked back over to the monitors, where T’challa seemed to be setting up support, and travel logistics.

“I think the best way to enter is to send in a call to the comms center, claiming to be either Tony or Senator Ross, there to discuss the execution. Obviously, both are going to be well aware of the situation, and both are going to want to be there for arrangements. It’ll be easy, given all the voice samples available with both of them having a great many interviews online" stated one of the advisers. Closer inspection of the adviser revealed that they were likely closely related. 

Steve watched the female advisor nod and say "That is a good idea." T’challa turned to speak to her specifically.

“Please, arrange for samples of both Tony and of Ross. I want it done before we even leave“

Steve watched the woman nod and leave the screen and wondered who she was. She had caramel skin, and far more interesting, had shockingly white hair, which had been styled into a mohawk.

T’challa turned to address the second advisor after the first had left and proposed “As for the entrance, I was thinking that we should split up. I will arrive in the helicopter. They will not be expecting me, but again, my housing of the captain is still unknown. They will see it as odd, but will not attack immediately. Their hesitation will allow me my in.”

The adviser spoke up in a gravely and slow voice. “You do realize that by freeing these people, the world will know that you are housing Barnes and Rogers? They will come for you. “

T’challa’s voice turned hard. “Let them come.” The adviser nodded, and seemed satisfied with his response, so the king continued talking.

“I want the Captain to enter from below. When the Raft raises, the third floor, which houses the inmates will temporarily expose its bottom, which is usually attached to the sea floor. The attachment points will open to entry points, for maintenance. There will be pressure chambers where Steve could easily enter, and through there, get into any guard holds, while they are focused on watching the prisoners and welcoming the helicopter. Once I attack, many will be heading to the upper levels. Steve picks off as many as possible, but gets his friends out of the cells. My team will handle the rest, and once most or all have been dealt with, Steve will move to the landing pad, where my team, plus an extra plane will be waiting to take them back to Wakanda. What do you think, cousin?”

The advisor considered it for a moment, and replied with a quick “It’s a good plan. I would suggest sending Steve in a small sub, rather than swim. Something disposable, but if he needs, he can use it to get out should there be too many men. Furthermore, I think she should take a bag, if he can still fight properly, which contains weaponry for the men he is saving. They should still be capable of fighting, no?”

T’challa quickly looked for Steve, who he found watching from the background, and turned to look at him.  His appraisal of Steve’s choice of armor seemed approving. He raised an eyebrow at Steve, looking for confirmation that the plans would be feasible.

Steve affirmed with a nod, that yes, he could pull this off. He had to, no matter the number of men he might face. The stakes were just too high. Allowing Wanda to die was not something Steve could survive.

With Steve’s nod, he turned back to the advisor-slash-cousin, and said “That sounds like the right move. I think we need to be on the move now. Thank you for all of your help. Will you connect me with a supplier?”

The man nodded, and said “Good luck. Update me as much as possible on the situation.” And his screen went dark for a moment before showing a new face. This one was much younger, but the man still had grey in his beard.

“Your majesty?” He asked, ready for orders. 

“I am going to need a great many things. Please ready one jet. Prep the jet with medical supplies. Second, please have one team of Dora Milaje ready for combat, and boarded on said plane. Additionally, please have the carrier include a small, disposable submarine.”

The man nodded, replying with a quick “Yes of course. Good luck on your mission sir. Where should I have the pilot set course for?”

T’challa tapped a few buttons, and said “I’ve sent the location to you. Captain Rogers will be accompanying me on the mission, and we will meet the carrier in 15 minutes. Can you have it ready by then?”

“I can have it ready in ten minutes, sir” responded the man with the tiniest grin.

 T’challa nodded, and thanked the man before shutting off the screen, just as the white-haired woman appeared back on the other screen.

He greeted her, and she immediately began updating the king.

“The audio samples are ready, but I took the initiative, and decided to simply call ahead.” Here she smiled. “They are more than happy to receive the king of Wakanda, and will accommodate him accordingly. They seemed unsurprised that you wanted to attend the girl’s execution. I told them that you were still upset about the loss of life in Nigeria, and wanted to be there, as representative of their deaths.”

T’challa grinned and vehemently thanked her. It made the plan that much easier. From inside, he could be surrounded by men and down them all without them suspecting a thing. Steve’s lips twitched in an odd approximation of a smile, one that was more than a little forced, but still held some genuine sentiment.

The woman smiled back at T’challa, and wished him luck. She mentioned something brief in Wakandan, which was meant clearly for T’challa alone, before shutting off the camera.

T’challa turned on his heels and quickly grabbed a backpack, stuffing various pieces of equipment into it. Once finished, he handed the bag to Steve, who thought it was too light to be carrying anything useful. Nevertheless, he accepted the bag, and the King lead him up to the launch location, which was bustling, at least thirty people all moving quickly. Twenty or so of those people were clearly mechanics, prepping the plane for takeoff, while the other ten or so were clearly soldiers.  
T’challa walked right for the soldiers, and addressed them quickly in Wakandan, clearly explaining the situation. A few of them huffed a bit, but mostly just looked excited about the upcoming mission.

Steve was startled to notice that all of the soldiers were women. He tried to push this down, reminding himself that this was exactly what Peggy had fought for. He knew from experience that they were just was skilled as any man, and he forced the surprise to fade quickly.

As soon as T’challa had finished briefing the group on the mission, a tiny mechanic walked over to the king, where he bowed and said “All ready, your majesty.”

T’challa ushered the women onto the jet, and walked into it, then gestured for Steve to follow.

Leaving Buck was harder than he had thought, given the fact that Steve had barely considered him throughout the ordeal. But knowing that his teammates were in the position they were **because** they had tried to keep Bucky safe... it forced Steve onto the plane, ready or not for what was to come. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No joke, I have like 19 chapters written. It getting ridiculous, especially for a story that is probably not great? Just keep in mind this is the first piece I've ever written, so it'll get better, I swear. And yes, I'm still going to update tomorrow.


	7. Up the Wolves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter’s song is by The Mountain Goats. Enjoy the super-extra long chapter!

The inside of the plane was stark, with several sitting areas, and a couple of couches, but nothing else. He sat down to a voice over the announcing something over the intercom. T’challa sat next to him, and translated.

“We are taking off. The trip will be approximately 18 hours, give or take a few. Thank you for coming, Captain.”

Steve shook his head. “I don’t think I am a captain anymore, your majesty. I left that behind me, with the shield I dropped.”

T’challa nodded, asking “What you did, for your friend Barnes… that was a lot to give up, for one man. To give up the mantle, the title, like that.”

“He would have down the same for me. We’ve been friends since the thirties, and that didn’t change, no matter what has happened since then.”

“You believe he is innocent, yes?”

“I know he is. It may have been his hands, but they didn’t give him a choice. It was mind control, plain and simple.”

“I see. I do understand this. So even if he had been the one to bomb the UN, it would not have been a choice. Would your Buck have done that?”

Steve was almost offended by the probing questions, but answered nonetheless.

“No, of course not! Buck and I fought together in World War Two to bring down the Nazi’s and Hydra. Hydra stole his free will, and replaced the mind of the man I knew with their puppet.”

T’challa seemed understanding enough, and satisfied with whatever he was seeking to understand about the situation.

One of the warrior-women spoke now.

“Your majesty, are you going to make introductions or not?” Her voice was lilting, and Steve wanted to hear her speak for days. Her accent was like none he had known before. Regardless of that fact, he was glad she had spoken up. His curiosity about the group of warriors had been burning inside him since he had first laid eyes on the group.

“Ah yes. My apologies, to both of you. Rogers, this is a team of women called the Dora Milaje. They are my personal bodyguards, and they accompany me on most of my missions. There is at least one from each tribe from my country. This is the leader of my current squad, Aneka. Okoye is currently piloting the plane, and she too is a member of the legion. Aneka, I’ve told you about Steve Rogers. “

She grinned, and spoke again “I am pleased to meet you, Rogers. You know, I met your friend, Romanov.”

T’challa grinned; apparently, there was something amusing about that encounter. Steve wondered at it for a moment, before returning his attention to the woman.

“She is quite a woman, I must admit. She would be a great addition to our ranks” continued the woman.

Aneka was clearly very relaxed, not at all concerned about what was to come, or the fact that she was in an enclosed space with two of the most powerful men in world. Immediately, Steve liked her. Similar to how Bucky had never treated him with kid gloves, she seemed to see him as a soldier, and yet as a person. It was refreshing, so he smiled back at her.

“I doubt you could find a woman better at espionage than her.” Steve replied, and for just a moment, he let himself miss his old teammate. He wondered how she was doing; knowing that the last time he had seen her, she had aided his escape. This thought caused him to turn towards T’challa.

“What happened to her? Is she okay?”

A look of regret passed over T’challa’s face and he hesitated before responding.

“Ah yes, about that…. Before I knew your friend Barnes was innocent," He hesitated, and Steve saw the gilt and frustration in the warrior-king's eyes. "I reported her actions in aiding your escape to Senator Ross. I do not know if she was indicted, although I imagine not. Last I have heard on her whereabouts was that she had taken off, deserted the Avengers tower.”

Steve frowned. He had not realized the state his friends would be left in for helping him escape. Wanda was going to be killed, and the others were being contained, in what were likely poor conditions. Now, Nat was on the run. Again, the guilt over the situation threatened to consume him.  Apparently realizing this, T’challa shook his head and said “I can have my people search for her, if you wish. I would be happy to offer her room in Wakanda as well.”

For a moment, not wanting to place that burden on the King warred with his guilt over her situation. Somehow, he managed to open his mouth, asking him if he could, in fact, begin a search for her. It was his fault that she was on the run, and given how public of a figure she had become, he imagined it was hard to come across a place to stay where she wasn’t known. She had made a great many enemies, and he knew that deserting the avengers was probably like allowing all of her enemies a chance to kill her. She was likely living under the threat of death at every second. Steve's guilt grew once more, as did his worry for the people who had given their freedom and almost their lives to get Bucky to a safe place. 

Any yet, Steve’s acceptance of the offer seemed to lighten T’challa’s guilt as well, so it seemed it was the right answer. The pair sat in silence for the next several hours, and eventually, when some of the women left to lay down and sleep, T’challa offered him a couch to sleep on as well.

Despite feeling too keyed up to sleep, the moment his head hit the cushion, he was asleep. The darkness was more than welcome.

~~~~~~

After seemingly only moments after he laid his head down, he awoke with a start, startled by one of the women, who was apparently only laughing at something the girl next to her had said. He sat up, frowning at the girls, wondering what they were laughing at, especially given the fact that the one girl had been pointing at him.

Next to him, Aneka was shaking with laughter. He looked at her, and she immediately stopped laughing. Steve’s eyes narrowed, and she spoke.

“My apologies for laughing, the youngest one here has heard many stories about Captain America.”

Steve did not understand how that might cause the girls to laugh so hard, let alone raucously enough to wake him from his sleep.

Chuckling again, Aneka explained further “She thinks it is very funny that the Great Captain America drools in his sleep.”

At that, he regained some of his humor, enough that he grinned a bit. Aneka was watching him still, but he decided it was worth the extra laughter to wipe the leftover drool off of his chin. He had been correct in assuming this might elicit more laughter, because all three women were crowing with laughter once more.

He shook himself, self conscious for the first time in a long while, before standing up to stretch. He left their laughter behind him as he stumbled to the front of the plane, where T’challa was sitting with the pilot.

“They may be fierce, but they seem to have retained their sense of humor” Steve said grimly to T’challa, who answered with a wide grin.

“Any updates on the situation? How much longer until we get there?” Steve inquired.

This time, the pilot answered. “We still have many hours to go. There have been no changes to the execution date or time, and it appears that we will get there well before they act.”

T’challa nodded in agreement, so Steve turned back around and went to go sit at one of the tables. This time, he knew there was no chance of him falling back to sleep.

As he was passing Aneka, she called to him.

“Come, sit with me. There is much time left, no sense in being alone and bored.”

Remembering how laid back she had acted before; Steve thought it might actually be pleasant, despite her poking fun at him just moments before. He sat across from her at the small two-person table she had been sitting at before. She leaned backwards, as if to avoid touching him, but smiled.

“So Captain, how are you enjoying your time in Wakanda? Have you been sightseeing?” Her smile suddenly seemed almost wicked. It was clear she was well aware that he had not even left his room, let alone the palace the entire time he had been there. He almost didn’t want to answer, but he knew it was not meant to be sinister; rather, she was testing him.

“I haven’t gotten out much, to be quite frank. What I have seen of the palace has been beautiful.”

He watched her, and the smile seemed genuine now. At the very least, she seemed to approve of him, as if his answer had confirmed something that she had guessed (or heard).

“T’challa is very invested in you. It seems that he views you as an ally, if not a friend.”

Steve now understood. She wanted to gauge him, to see if he was a threat to the king. He was reminded of the way that Nat used to act, constantly careful, concealed, analyzing the situation and people she was around. He wondered if she would relax around him, like Nat had finally done after the events of the helicarrier, when he had first located Bucky. He wanted to know what Aneka was really like, thinking that he had gotten to see some snippets of whoever she was in her jokes and seemingly laid-back nature.

“I can’t say I know him, but I think that given time, we could easily be friends. We are clearly like-minded.” Steve responded, hoping that she would see the sincerity of his statement. That was what had eventually won over Natasha. She had quickly caught on to the fact that he was not one to play mind games. What you see is what you get, and the truth always came first.

Again, she appeared satisfied with his answer, and she seemed to relax (fractionally).

He decided to ask about the warrior-women. “How did you end up as T’challa’s bodyguard?”

“So I take it that T’challa did not explain the full situation here, did he?”

Steve shook his head, curious about the woman’s odd question.

“Well then, settle in. The story is a long one. You know that he is the king now, after his father was killed?”Steve nodded with a quick jerk of his head.

“Good. We you must know that Wakanda has rules about who the king is allowed to marry. Essentially, he is supposed to marry a woman from a tribe. Initially, T’challa did not want to do this. He had an arranged marriage to a woman from outside Wakanda that his father had set up prior to his death, while T’challa was still prince. T’challa wanted to honor this arrangement, even after becoming king, but apparently the arrangement was hinging on T’chaka, his father, still being alive. Thus, the marriage fell through. Wakanda, while advanced, is still divided into tribes. When the tribe’s leaders heard that the arranged marriage, something that was not popular with the people, they each demanded that their daughters to be the one to marry the king."

"In order to appease each tribe father, T’challa needed a way to meet each daughter, in order to choose a wife. At the same time, however, he had just dismantled an older bodyguard system. They were corrupt and constantly violent. Thus, he was in need of a wife and a bodyguard system. He decided to instate us. Each tribal father picked the toughest, smartest, and most beautiful woman they had, and sent her to serve as a guard. That way, each daughter has a fair chance of winning his heart, and could serve to protect the king at the same time. They, that is we, are here to showcase that we would be the best fit for a wife.”

Steve was shocked. It was an ingenious solution to two separate situations that he would have never seen as connected.

Aneka continued on.

“So His majesty had a group of about fifteen young women on his hands, and was struggling with organizing us, and with all of his other duties, it was far too much for him to worry about. I was the oldest of all the women, and took to keeping them in control. Eventually, T’challa named me leader of the Dora Milaje. It was the most logical choice. In my tribe, I had been organizing the warriors from the whole tribe. a little over a dozen young women was no great feat. I train them in our spare time as well.”

She seemed proud of her position and accomplishments, and to Steve, it seemed her pride was deserved. Once more, he was incredibly impressed with the Wakandan leadership. There was far more to leadership than one would assume from the outside, but Aneka and T’challa seemed more than prepared to deal with it.

He voiced this opinion “I am impressed. You seem well suited to your position. I don’t mean to pry, but do you think T’challa was testing you? Do you think you might be queen one day?”

She laughed, and it seemed genuine enough, so Steve wondered what was so funny about the inquiry.

“You live up to the reputation Captain. Ever so polite. No, he was not testing me. T’challa does not really see us as potential wives. Given the age difference, he sees us more as daughters, or perhaps younger sisters. We are all unsurprised in this. None of us really expected to be queen. Being a member of the Dora Milaje is seen as almost as prestigious as actually being Queen and we are content with just running missions with him."

This shocked Steve. Out of all of these women, especially Aneka, he could not understand why T’challa had shown no interest in any of them. Suddenly it dawned on him.

“Earlier, I was with T’challa while he was in conference with two advisers.”

She apparently knew exactly what he was about to say, having followed his train of thought, though it had not been spoken aloud.

“Ah, so you have seen Storm, no?”

“I don’t know if that was her name, but she had white hair, up in a Mohawk.”

“Yes, that is Storm. We all know that she is the reason that T’challa never showed any interest in us. Storm once saved T’challa’s life. They were together for a time, before the Dora Milaje. She had to leave however. Her calling was in America. Have you heard of mutants?”

Steve shook his head, so she explained.

“Where have you been hiding Captain?” She paused with a small smile before saying “In ice?”

Steve rolled his eyes, having sustained many such jabs at his lack of historical knowledge from Tony and the rest of the Avengers. The thought caused his heart to stutter a bit, wishing nothing had changed/

“Mutants are a new breed of humans. Well, not really new. They have existed since the dawn of time, but they only revealed themselves to humans in the early seventies. Many thought they were dangerous, but it is not so. They are like you, Captain. They have powers. Some can read thoughts, some can transform. Some are just a bit faster than a human should be. Others have stronger powers, but most of them are peaceful. Storm is one such mutant. She can control the weather, hence the name.”

This was fascinating to Steve, and he passed the remaining hours with Aneka, discussing mutants, and Wakanda, its history, its people, and its language. By the end of the conversation, he had learned several Wakandan words, which would be helpful while running missions, and he had learned much from Aneka. She was clearly an incredible woman. Peggy would have liked her, had they ever talked.

So it was with her that he passed the time, until T’challa walked over to them, and called to all of the women. Those who were sleeping awoke instantly, and were watching him, prepared for any announcements.  
He addressed all of them saying “Be prepared. We are going to move Rogers into the submarine, and drop him as close to the water as possible. We are descending now.”

He turned to Steve, saying that there was a trap door that would unlock into a tiny room where the submarine was.

Steve followed his instructions, and heard Aneka calling the women to discuss tactics. Each woman was listening to her attentively, and the image of Aneka talking rapidly to T’challa and the others was the last thing he saw before descending into the tiny room.

 

Well “room” was a strong word.  He was forced to bend nearly in half, but he saw the opening to the submarine, where he was forced to half-crawl towards.

Once inside the vehicle, the controls lit up, each labeled in English, for with he was extremely thankful. It seemed simple enough, when suddenly; he realized there was no way for him to communicate with the others.

This was immediately addressed however, when he could hear the pilot’s voice from inside the cabin.

“Captain Rogers, can you hear me?”

Steve couldn’t find any button that might turn on communications, so he took a chance and just spoke into the open air.

“Yes ma’am. Can you hear me?”

“Yes Captain. We could not give you an earpiece. The security system they have would pick up the signal, and lock the prison up. There would be no way to sneak you in. Instead, you’ll have to do this blind, for which I apologize. Instead, just trust that we are working, and will be there to meet you at the entry point with the jet. If you get there, and we have been overtaken, get back down to the submarine. You will only be able to take two people inside with you, but you could get back outside. If it goes badly, we will get a message for someone to meet you. Just go back west, and someone will retrieve you. Do you understand?”

Her words had been rapid fire, but simple. So he responded “Yes ma’am.”

“Good, thank you. Do you understand the controls system?”

Steve felt like a broken record, but he responded again with “Yes ma’am.”

“Alright, we are clear. In about one minute we will be close enough to the water to drop you in. The sonar system will guide you into the area you need to go. Do you have the bag of supplies, and anything else you need?”

Steve double checked his surrounding s and saw that he did indeed have the bag and everything else.  So he responded with a quick “Yes”

“Are you ready Captain?”

“Its Steve, and yes ma’am.”

Then, without a response from her, he was falling. The day was extremely rainy and foggy, so he knew he would not be seen as he fell. It was not even a second before he was underwater.

The sudden stop, then sinking feeling was a jolt to his system, and his mind went on auto-pilot. This was just another mission, and running missions was all he did well. He guided the submarine though the deep waters, sinking several hundred feet underwater, and forward, towards the seafloor anchor for the prison.

He reached it within the minute, and waited for it to detach from its anchors. Supposedly, the extension upwards opened a small chamber where he could enter.  The systems on the control board began registering a change, and he noticed that the metal was extending, raising the prison up, and opening the chamber for his entry. 

He sped in, hoping he would not miss his window. He had more than enough time and all too quickly he was inside the chamber. It was no longer going up, and instead, was sinking once more. The walls closed over him, and pushing the water out as it did so. He had to wait for the majority of the water to drain before he could exit the sub, but as soon as he could, he got out, grabbing the bag as he did so.

The water was still knee deep when he stepped out of the sub, but he stood in the murky water anyways, and looked around. T’challa had said that there were maintenance hatches he could use to get into the actual prison. His eye quickly landed on a ladder to the south side, and he trudged as quickly as he could towards it. The water was still leaving, and he sped up with each step. He got to the ladder quickly enough, and soon he was scaling the rungs, as silent as he could possibly be.

At the top, there was a locked hatch, but it was only a deadbolt, not an actual key hole, which he again thanked his luck stars for. He pulled out the Vibranium baton and hit the lock once. It was more than enough force, and the lock flew off, hitting the water with a small splash before sinking. Steve grimaced at the loud noise, but opened the hatch door.

It lead to different room, but this one had men in it. His luck seemed bottomless, as all four men had their backs turned to him, and had apparently not heard the commotion from below. He grabbed four of the poisoned balls and threw them, each landing precisely. Each of the men seemed confused for a moment, then promptly dropped to the ground, unconscious. Steve pulled himself fully up into the room. 

It was stark, with shelves covered in tools and supplies. He realized that the men were in mechanics overall’s, and were most definitely not soldiers. He wondered if there were any patrols nearby. He placed his ear against the door leading out of the room, and listened intently.

An earsplitting siren rang, shocking Steve. Clearly, T’challa’s plan had worked. They had entered, and taken out most of the soldiers. Somehow one of them had hit an alarm. Any remaining soldiers were going to be heading to the top now, to respond to the break in.

This was a perfect chance to figure out where his team was being kept. He burst out of the door, to an empty hall. He grabbed his baton, and looked around for signs. There were, of course, absolutely none. Anyone with the clearance to be down here would know their way around. The hall ran east to west, so he decided to take his chances and head east.

The east was a good (and bad) decision. He saw six more rooms, each with a patrol of four soldiers at assigned positions. He entered each of the assorted control rooms slowly, and incapacitated every one  of the soldiers without drawing any attention to himself. Once all of the soldiers had been taken care of in the final room, he inspected it for any maps or ways to locate where his friends were being kept. His luck seemed never ending, as the last room had a small map taped to the inside of the door.

It showed that around the next curve of the hall to the east was the monitor room, which was useless to him, and to the west were the actual cells. However, there were no more rooms for soldiers to be standing in, so Steve decided that speed was going to be paramount. He wrenched open the door and booked it as quickly as he could back down the hall, towards the cells. He burst into the room, which was circular and contained nine cells in total. He walked to the one on the far right, which held Sam. He was pacing back and forth, and at the moment, had his back turned to Steve.

Steve walked over quickly, so when Wilson turned back around, and saw Steve approaching, he grinned. He gestured for Sam to step back, and raised the baton. Sam looked confused but shrugged as Steve began hammering on the glass. At first, nothing happened. But suddenly, he felt something give way. A additional and final blow caused the extremely thick glass to shatter. Steve rushed in, and grabbed Sam with a huge grin.

“Oh man is that you? Is it really Captain America, here to bust me outta prison?” Sam said, hugging Steve back.

“Oh shut it Sam” Steve said, letting go, but still holding him at arm’s length.  “Are you good?”

“I’m good. You don’t happen to have my wings, do you?”

“No. Look man here’s this bag. Find something you can use. I’m going to get the rest out.”

Sam grinned and grabbed the bag from Steve’s hand, and began rooting through it. Steve turned around, looking at the cell right next to Sam’s. It was Barton.

Barton, who was lying on his back, was apparently oblivious to both the alarm, and the fact that Steve was even there in the first place. Steve realized they must have taken his hearing aids away from him when he was transferred in there. Steve attempted to bang the glass in order to create vibrations Clint could feel. It was ineffective, so he decided he would have to break in anyways.

He pulled his baton out, and on the third strike, the glass shattered. Clint leapt about a foot in the air before spinning around to see the Captain standing there. Clint’s eyebrows rose impossibly high, but in less than a second he was by Steve’s side, saying “Thank you” over and over.

Lang’s glass was thicker, or maybe the Captain was just getting tired, but he managed to get the glass to shatter on the fifth or maybe sixth try. Lang, for his part, was shaking his head, and pointing to the left the whole time. Steve ignored this, remembering that the man was a bit of a joker, and passed it off for a reference he didn’t know.

Sam, by that point, had joined up with Clint, and both were arming themselves with the items in the bag. The moment the glass on Lang’s cell shattered, Lang started shouting “Dude we need to get the girl out of here!”

Steve figured that Lang was referring to her upcoming execution, but he understood exactly how wrong that was when he moved over to the fourth, and final, cell.

In it, Wanda was lying down, but not by choice. She had been strapped down. They had her in a straitjacket, with her torso strapped to the bed, and her legs were tied down as well.

But that was not the worst of it. As Steve’s eves traveled up the young woman’ body, he saw why Lang appeared so distressed. They had placed a shock collar around her neck, and the burns located there were severe enough that most of the flesh around the collar was blackened. Finally, Steve’s eyes landed on her face. Her cheeks, normally bony but flushed and healthy, were now extremely sallow; her eyes had sunken into her skull, and it was obvious that she had not been fed very often, if at all, since their capture nearly two months ago.

Steve’s anger got away from him, and he raised the baton, and under the single blow, the glass to her cell shattered. There was no response from the girl, though her eyes were open. Steve ran to the bed, and called Sam over. Both he and Sam were working on untying her as gently as possible as Lang was already there, trying to explain as quickly as he could manage.

“We’ve got tiny windows in between each of our cells. We couldn’t hear one another between them though, so I couldn’t tell the others what was happening to her, and I couldn’t talk to her either. She tried to escape pretty quickly, but the shock collar around her neck shocked her every time she tried to use her powers. It got pretty bad, especially at night. She’d get nightmares, I think, and her magic or whatever would start up, and she’d get shocked. It got really bad, so she couldn’t go to sleep, right? But they stopped giving her food since she wouldn’t eat, ‘cause her throat hurt so much. I think her body just gave up, ‘cause one day, she just dropped to the ground. They just threw her on the bed, and started drugging her. She’d sleep, sure, but the shocks would come every time. She still couldn’t eat, so they give her an IV drip sometimes. They just let her waste away.” Lang's voice cracked multiple times, and it was clear to Steve that watching Wanda's ordeal he disrupted something inside the man.

Steve’s anger grew and grew as he heard the account of what they had done to her, and by the end of the story, his hands were shaking; he had to struggle not to rip her free all at once, for fear of injuring her, as delicate as she was .

His face must have expressed this, as Wilson and Lang both were watching him closely, trying to gauge what he would do. He turned to Wilson, and asked “If I were to carry her all the way back up, would you be able to cover me?”

Sam nodded, but offered “I can carry her instead.”

This seemed a bad idea. Steve was still shaking with anger, and thought that if he was allowed to attack the soldiers, he might do something he would regret. Like rip them to….. He stopped the thoughts in their track, but told Wilson “No, its best I carry her. I don’t really trust myself not to injure someone.”

Scott and Sam both seemed to let out a breath simultaneously. Quickly enough, they got her out of the chains, and as gently as he could manage, Steve pulled the tiny woman into his arms. She couldn’t have weighed much more than 90 pounds, and that was being generous.

The seeming frailty of her bones made him afraid that moving with her would break her into pieces, just as the glass had shattered under his force earlier.

He turned and her eyes fluttered, but she did not, or could not, indicate that she understood what was happening. Scott, Clint, and Sam all stood in front, and together, they moved towards the nearest staircase upwards.

If they had questions about where they were going, they did not voice them. If they wondered what had happened between him and Tony, they refused to ask. For this, Steve was grateful. They had a long plane ride back to Wakanda, and he could explain it all then. Now, they needed to focus on getting Wanda to safety. They arrived at the staircase, where Clint and Sam took the lead, running full fledged up the stairs, while Lang walked behind Steve, both making sure that walking up the stairs would not injure her in anyway.

She did not move or make a sound as Steve walked up the first flight of stairs. When he got to the platform for the second floor of the prison, he met Wilson and Barton who had both apparently cleared the floor single handedly.

They ran up the next flight to the top floor of the prison, where it rose and opened to let planes and helicopters enter. Before they opened the door, they waited for Steve to catch up. For the final floor, he moved even slower, making absolutely sure he did not jostle her in anyway, as her eyes had begun to roll underneath her eyelids.

Behind him, Lang yelled “GET THE COLLAR OFF OF HER, NOW!”

Steve laid the woman on the floor, and tried to pry it off gently, when Lang, despite the size difference, pushed Steve out of the way. He placed his fingers underneath the collar, and the girl shivered, obviously from pain. Steve almost pushed Lang away from the girl before the man curled his hand into a fist, crushing a small part of the collar.

Steve pulled Lang away from her and demanded to know why he had hurt her, even if it was to get the collar off.

“Look man, I know you don’t know me and all, but I watched her every day for two months. Her nightmares, the ones that would set off her magic or whatever, they always started with her eyes rolling like that. She was going to get shocked again, and soon too, if it had stayed on. I broke the power source.”

He nodded, finally understanding. Whatever was the case, Lang seemed fond of her, so given that he had fought for the Captain once before, and now had protected Wanda, he couldn’t help but trust him just a bit more.

Steve apologized rapidly, before picking her back up, as gently as he could manage. He addressed Sam and Barton, who had both been watching the scene avidly, asking them to open the door. Both seemed nervous, and Sam said “You know all the soldiers are up here, right. How are we going to get thorough them with the girl?”

Steve just shook his head, and said “Just go”. They opened the doors, tensed and ready for whatever was on the other side. While Steve couldn’t be sure, given that no soldiers had come down to attack them earlier, he had faith in the Dora Milaje that any men up here were taken care of already.

Their entrance was met with guns pointed directly at their heads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, the characters, Aneka and the rest of the Dora Milaje are absolutely real characters in the marvel comics. If you've seen CA:CW (which I assume anyone reading this has), do you remember the bald woman who addressed Romanov when she was recruiting Black Panther? Yeah, that was supposed to be Aneka. A pretty piss poor representation of her, but hey what can you do? Seriously though, look up some pictures of the Dora Milaje. They are so bad ass and amazing.... the fact that they were left out of the movie pissed me off so much. Anyways, most of the extra characters that you may not recognize in my story are marvel characters, and will usually have a connection somehow to the characters of the Avengers, but sometimes I like to borrow characters that don't cross with these precious souls. If you ever have any questions about the history or other characters, I'm always happy to answer. Anyways, thanks for reading.


	8. Perish Beneath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter’s song is by one of my all time favorite bands Funebrarum.

Steve almost laughed at the faces of Sam and Barton when they realized they were surrounded by a group of 6 foot warrior women.

Sam had completely frozen, a look of horror on his face when he laid eyes on Black Panther. He looked angrier than Steve had ever seen him when he said “Man you just can’t let go of a grudge, can you?”

Steve met Aneka’s eyes, and both of them chuckled. Sam turned around to eye Steve before saying “Now is not a good time to lose it Rogers.”

Steve nodded at the women, as Sam was watching him, and each of the Dora Milaje lowered their weapons. He grinned at Sam, who was furious.

“Seriously man? You couldn’t have warned us that you didn’t come alone?”

 Steve almost shrugged, but thought better of it, given the fragile woman in his arms, and instead replied with a cheeky “You didn’t ask. Look, I’ll explain it all once we get Wanda back home.”

They walked over to the plane, and as the Dora Milaje were boarding, he heard Sam grumble something about how he “didn’t know where motherfucking home is”. Steve resisted the urge to say “Language” but grinned anyway about his friend’s continually sarcastic nature.

Lang and Barton just seemed lost, but perhaps years of working with Nat had desensitized Barton, because he just shrugged and got on the plane. Lang, on the other hand was muttering under his breath too about how he “never got invited to all the fun superhero reunions” and that “at least we have one billionaire on our side now” before getting on the plane as well.

Aneka was waiting behind Steve, and inquired about the girl.

“Was she always that thin, Captain?”

Steve scowled, and while that seemed answer enough, he wanted everyone to know what had happened to her under Secretary Ross’s care.

“No. They’ve been starving her, and shocking her every time she tried to use magic.” He nodded to the vestiges of the collar, which was still covering most of her neck. Steve was afraid to remove the collar, to see what had been done to the skin beneath it.

Suddenly, Aneka’s face was the most animalistic he had ever seen it, and he understood how he must have looked when he had first heard of what they had done. She turned to T’challa, as if asking if she was allowed to go back, to kill the soldiers who had committed the atrocity in front of them.

T’challa gave one small shake of his head, and Steve was almost disappointed. He wanted blood for their actions. He wanted to watch Aneka and her team rip the soldiers to shreds. He wanted to join in. He forced this train of thought away and just focused on Wanda’s face. Lang was waiting up in the plane, ready to take Wanda from Steve. For a moment, he did not want to pass her over, but he had to, in order to get onto the higher platform. He lifted her slowly, keeping her neck supported the whole time. Lang nodded at him, and scooped Maximoff up, holding her tightly to his chest, and carried her inside the plane. Steve leapt up into the plane, and ran over to where Lang was laying her down on a stretcher two of the Dora Milaje had prepared ahead of time. As soon as she had been laid down, the two women, clearly assigned as medics, shoved Lang away and began attending to her. 

One of the women immediately placed an IV needle, one connected to a small bag with morphine in it, into Wanda's tiny arm. The needle looked like it might go right through her, as her skin was paper thin and gave beneath the needles sharp point. The other woman was checking her heartbeat, then her lungs. She was breathing, if unstably. The medic responded with grabbing another bag, this one a pump. It had a mouthpiece attached, and he realized it was a manual machine to keep her breathing. Anger clouded his vision and he moved towards her, and sat next to Scott, who looked just as angry as he felt. They looked on in silence as the women worked over the youngest avenger. 

And so it was that both men sat as close to her as they were allowed, and after some time, Sam joined them.

“I know you’re worried about her, and don’t get me wrong, I am too, but I need to know what’s going on man”

Steve nodded, and left Lang, who apparently, did not care as much as Sam did about what had happened. They walked a couple of feet down, and sat at a table, the same one that he and Aneka had sat at not even an hour before. Sam raised an eyebrow at him, as if saying “Explain”.

Steve sighed, now exhausted, but started talking anyways.

“When Tony found us, we found out that the man, who was behind all of this, had already killed the super soldiers. He was never trying to wake them up. He wanted to get Tony, me and Buck in the same room. You remember what we found, a couple of months ago? About Tony’s parents?”

Sam’s face darkened, but nodded.

“He played a video of that night for Tony. He flipped, and tried to kill me and Buck. Tony blasted Buck’s metal arm off, nearly killed me in the process. We got out, but barely. I tried to just leave him there, but that wasn’t good enough for Stark, ‘cause apparently the shield isn’t mine, it’s his dads. So if he couldn’t kill me he wanted me to give it up. So I just dropped it. Left it there for Stark. I… I don’t care about it enough. I would give it up a million times just to get Buck outta there alive, you know that.”

There was an odd expression on Sam’s face and he nearly quoted T’challa when he said “What you did for Barnes. ….You could have killed Tony. You left your shield behind, just for him. That’s a lot to give up, for one man.” 

“He’s my best friend Sam. It’s been Bucky and Steve since ’33. I couldn’t let Tony kill him.”

That response seemed to both trouble and amuse Sam, as if he knew something Steve didn’t. This irritated him to the point of wanting to leave the conversation, but he stayed when Sam spoke again. It was so soft, he thought Sam hadn’t meant for him to hear it. “You would not have done that for me or any of the rest of your _friends_.”  Steve filed that statement away for future thought, but gave no indication that he’d even heard it in the first place.

“You know what he’s done, right? You know he’s dangerous?” Sam asked, his brow again furled with worry.

“Look, I know you’re worried about it, but he chose to go back under, Sam. He’s in cryosleep. He didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

This seemed to surprise Sam, who took into consideration that BUCKY himself had chosen to go under, rather than being forced.

“So how did you end up with King Kitty over there?”

Steve grinned a little at the title, but answered seriously.

“Buck was in no shape to go far, and neither was I. I had thought I’d take the helicarrier as far as I could, but when I got out there, T’challa was waiting. I thought I was going to have to fight him once more, but T’challa was standing next to the therapist guy, who was cuffed and apparently unconscious.

T’challa told me that he had seen everything, and that he now understood truly how innocent Buck was. He offered to deliver Zemo to Tony, and to take us back with him, to Wakanda. Obviously, I was dumbfounded, but decided to trust the man. It was a better option than just trying to make a run for it. We made a couple of stops, but in the end we went back to Wakanda with him, where we’ve been ever since. This whole time, we’ve been looking for you, and trying to find a way to clear the words from Buck’s mind.”

Same didn’t comment, obviously waiting for more information. Clearly, he was intent on figuring out the whole situation, and would not let him rest any time soon. Steve just cleared his throat before continuing “I’m sorry we didn’t find you sooner Sam. We… we could have done something differently, I’m sure.”

What he did not say was how guilty he felt that he had not been helping in the search. He didn’t mention how he could now add Wanda’s injuries to the long list of things he was responsible for.

“We’re headed back to Wakanda now. T’challa has offered to allow all of us to stay there, under his protection.”

Sam looked just as surprised as Steve had felt when T’challa had first offered.

“So we’re good. Out of prison, and to a safe place. All at once. Does T’challa want anything in return?”

Steve responded without thinking “Not from you, or the rest of the team.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed, and he demanded “So what does he want from you, then?”

Steve bit his lip, debating on whether or not he should tell him everything. He decided that half-truths were suitable in this situation.

“He wants me to run missions in Wakanda. He says its safe there, but he still wants help keeping it safe.”

Sam nodded, and seemed like he wanted to keep talking, but thought better of it, finally noting both Steve’s exhaustion, and apparently, his own.

“Am I good to sleep? I barely slept the whole time we were there.”

Steve nodded and pointed to a free couch. “It’s all yours, man. I’ll wake you when we get close.”

Sam shook his head, and said “No. Get some sleep, too. You look like you haven’t slept in weeks either. They’ll wake us up when we land.”

Steve nodded; mostly just appease the worry-wart slash friend. He walked back over to Wanda and sat next to Lang, who had not stopped watching Wanda. By now, the Dora Milaje had done all they could for her, and had stepped away. She was still deathly pale, and still did not respond when Steve called her name.

He turned to Lang, who looked at him, almost apologetically.

“Sorry for shoving you earlier. I just couldn’t let her get shocked again.”

Steve wanted to ask him what was going on, why he felt so strongly about the situation. Sure, he’d fought by her once, and the situation was beyond his worst nightmare but it didn’t seem to warrant the extremity of the way Scott was acting towards her. Instead, he went with “its fine. You did it to help her, so thank you. “

Lang nodded, and returned his attention to the comatose girl. He seemed to be counting her breaths. Steve continued to wonder at his behavior. He had never seen anyone act like that. It was odd, to say the least. He hoped that Lang hadn’t accidently fallen in love with her. That would cause nothing but pain for both of them.

Steve reached over to Lang and clapped him on the shoulder (gently, of course) before lying on the couch across from both him and Wanda.

This time, he gave into the dark, letting the void consume him again. He wasn’t sleeping, not really. He just let himself fall away from gravity, back into the place he’d been before the whirlwind of activity that had accompanied T’challa’s original visit. The plane’s many occupants were oblivious to his descent into the void he had kept at bay for the rescue mission. It was like a breath of fresh air, to give in once more, so he melted away, deeper into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things I am totally aware of: this is supposed to be a relationship story between Steve and Bucky. Things I can’t help but write: drama. Things that will start up within the next two chapters: angsty relationship things. I tried to warn you that there would be an obnoxious amount of set up. Plus, you know, the actual COMPLETELY NECESSARY period of mutual pining, followed by super-gay-super-soldiers running missions and other assorted plot points.


	9. Crazy Circles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crazy Circles is by Bad Company. Enjoy the read!

Steve did not move, not for the many hours that constituted the plane ride back to Wakanda. He had hoped that his stillness would seem like sleep, rather than what was quickly becoming his favorite activity. So when T‘challa called him to the front, he was almost too stiff to move. Nevertheless, he sat up, and after a brief stretch, he walked over to the king, who seemed to have known what he was doing the whole plane ride. Steve almost scowled, knowing that T’challa would use this to feed his notion that something was wrong with him. But he kept his expression still, knowing that anything he did at that point would only feed T’challa’s near-obsession with his habits.

T’challa gestured for him to sit down by him, at a small table where Aneka was sitting as well. He smiled at her in greeting, and she raised her head in return. This seemed far too formal for the friendship they had initiated on the plane ride there, but he realized this was due to T’challa’s presence. She must act far more professionally around him than Steve would have thought necessary. He wondered if they had a falling out at some point.

“What can I do for you, your majesty?” Steve asked, deciding to mimic Aneka’s professional manner. T’challa laughed, and said “Unless you want me to refer to you as Captain at every encounter, you can just call me T’challa.” He paused to chuckle again before continuing with “We are nearly there. When we land, I have a medical team waiting to take Maximoff away for medical care immediately. Do you want to accompany her, or would you prefer to go with Wilson, Lang and Barton to your rooms?”

Steve was surprised at T’challa’s inquiry. It struck him as exceptionally thoughtful.

“I’ll go with my teammates to help them settle in, but is there any way I can go see Wanda right after that?”

T’challa nodded. “I will send someone to come get you about an hour after we land, if that’s agreeable?”

Steve grunted in affirmation, and walked over to Sam, who was still dead asleep. Steve prodded him awake, and informed him of what was going to happen. Sam, barely awake, nodded and sat up. Steve moved on to Barton, who had been waiting to see what was going on.

Steve quickly asked in sign language if he wanted to sign or just read his lips. Barton shrugged, and responded, just a hint too loudly, that he preferred to read lips. Steve said “Alright” and proceeded to explain everything: where they were going, the fact that they were going to be allowed to stay there, and the medical team that would be taking Wanda when they got there. Clint just shrugged, and said “thanks”. Steve took this as acceptance of the plan and moved on to Lang, who was still watching Wanda like…. Well like a hawk. Steve might have chuckled at the pun he had just thought of, had her condition not been so serious.

He sat next to Scott, who gave him a tight lipped smile as acknowledgement of his presence. Steve started to open his mouth but Lang cut him off.

“I heard it when you told Wilson. Look, I don’t want to leave her. Will you ask you highness over there if I can go with her, wherever they take her?”

“I can, sure. But I think that it might be best if you come with me. The doctors are going to need their space with her, and you need sleep.”

Lang began to protest, but Steve raised his hands up to stop him. “Look, I know you…..I know she means something to you, but she’s not waking up anytime soon. They’ll need time to assess the situation, and you being there will only going to stress the doctors. Get a good sleep in. When I get back from visiting her, I’ll take you to go see her and fill you in on her condition.

Lang seemed irritated at the offer, but agreed, likely seeing that it wasn’t much of an option. By the time they had finished talking to one another, the plane was in descent, and the two Dora Milaje who had been attending to her for the plane trip stood, and walked back over to the gurney. They kept it as steady as possible when the plane hit the ground, and as soon as the plane doors were open they had removed the bed, and were carrying her to a waiting group of people in a large truck. They loaded her into the back, and away she went.

He and Lang were both dumbfounded at the speed with which she was being whisked away. They stared after her for a moment before T’challa met them by the door, flanked on either side by Dora Milaje. His exit was met with a good crowd of people, most of whom were just citizens or reporters, but some who were clearly there to discuss the events that had transpired in his absence or advisers. He had left Sam, Scott and Clint with nowhere to go but back to Steve’s bunking room.

Steve frowned, but realized that as a king, they did not really warrant as much attention as they had gotten from the king already. Sam seemed severely irritated by the King’s actions, but walked with Steve down the steps and did not mention it. They descended to the platform, where the bystanders for their arrival were mostly gone, having either left or followed the king. Steve barely remembered the way back to his room, but somehow managed to navigate the long halls and many door/elevator contraptions. As they walked, Clint was all eyes, taking in as much of the scenery as possible. It seemed to delight him that there were so many ledges near the ceiling, which in most places were forty feet high. Suddenly, about half way through the walk back to Steve’s room, Clint turned to Steve and asked “What happened to Nat? Is she okay?”

“I don’t really know. T’challa said that she went into hiding. I don’t know if you saw, but she helped us get away from T’challa on the airstrip, so she’s currently on the run.”

Clint frowned, and seemed to need more information than just that about his long-time friend/partner-in-crime, so Steve just kept talking; giving the information he had heard nearly a day prior.

“T’challa didn’t know Buck was innocent at that point, so when Nat helped us escape, he told Ross what she did.”

Clint’s face turned rapidly into a scowl, so Steve continued as quickly as he could.  
“He regrets it, Barton. Once he understood what happened, he started a search party for her. When they find her, he’s going to let her stay here.”

Clint seemed to be appeased with that, and asked “Do you think T’challa would let me on the search party?”

While he didn’t want to speak for the king, Steve considered it. If T’challa really did regret turning Natasha in, and he had a search running, then he must really want her safe. It follows that having the one man who knew her the best would be a welcome addition to a party trying to find her. He voiced this to Clint, who finally relaxed. Steve continued with

“Nat can take care of herself. Don’t worry about her too much. We’ll find her soon.” Steve said, trying to reassure him.  Clint nodded, but seemed to already be considering places she might have tucked herself into. Sam had been listening to the conversation, and asked Steve “Do you know why he’s doing all of this?”

While he couldn’t be sure, he tried to explain it as best he could.

“He almost killed Bucky in revenge. I think some of it s guilt… but there’s really more behind it. On one hand, it is for his father. His father died for the accords, for the idea of the peace that would come from it. T’challa doesn’t believe in the same peace, nor the peace that was supposed to come in death, like his father did. He told me that he cannot help his father find peace, but he can help Bucky. On another hand, he told me how much he regrets following his father’s ideas in everything. After his father died, he was consumed by the revenge that told him to hold the one responsible accountable. But once that was over, there was nothing to face but his death, and what he had died for. He’s been thinking a lot about the accords, Sam. He told me he realized how much his father had influenced his decision, and realized that he doesn’t really care for them. You know he’d have to defer to them as well as the Black Panther, and he doesn’t trust the diplomats not to take advantage of his skills. So he’s rescinded Wakandan support for the accords.”

Sam seemed shocked by the news, but Lang weighed in with his two-sense on the matter.

“Holy fucking shit man”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I’m aware that this chapter was obnoxiously short. We've finally hit the point where I'm actually writing it chapter by chapter, so I might be a bit late, or the chapters might be a bit shorter. Bare with me!


	10. Over The Wall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Over The Wall is by Testament. It’s going to be an emotional roller coaster, this one. Enjoy the pain.

Everyone had seemed slightly awed by the explanation, but it was the only way to prove to them that they truly were safe, perhaps even welcome, in Wakanda. He wanted them to understand exactly how much things had changed. Their conversations, varied and faceted as they had been, adequately explained the situation to everyone, and it had filled the long walk back to Steve’s chamber. He took out the key that T’challa had given him when he had first given him a place to stay, and unlocked the door.

It was pretty anticlimactic. Everyone filed in and flopped down onto the various couches and chairs that filled the living room. Sam turned to him and asked “What now?”

They all waited expectantly. Steve wanted to scowl, but he kept his irritation at _always_ having to direct them, to himself. Here in Wakanda, they were going to have to learn how to function without Steve mothering them at every turn. So he just shrugged, and said “Anyone hungry?”

He now had everyone’s full attention. Apparently, the prison had not just been starving Wanda. This fact was suddenly apparent upon closer inspection of each of his friends. Sam’s eyes were darker, fainter than they might have been. He noticed that Clint’s wrists were particularly knobby, and while he didn’t really know Lang, he knew that no normal adult’s stomach bulged like that. He remembered briefly that one night, he had stayed awake for the whole night, unable to sleep. Infomercials were the only thing on, and the one he had been watching was a calling for donations to African villages. The children’s stomachs, despite being empty, were oddly distended. The infomercial informed him this was due to lack of food.  
This realization, that his friends had been starved just the same as Wanda, though obviously not as severely, tore through his mind, ripping his coherent thought process into pieces. He was too angry to move, let alone to offer them the food they needed. He wanted to turn around, find Aneka, and kill the soldiers, rip them to pieces’ side by side with her.

His vision was tinted red, so he did not notice Sam was walking over to him until suddenly; there was a hand on his shoulder. He saw Sam then, who spoke softly, but with strength nonetheless.

 “Steve, you got us out, alright? Look, I’m about to get hangry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m hangry.”

Clint snorted in the background, and the reference to their (happily) missing friend was enough to make Steve calm down just a bit. He found that he had control over his limbs once more, and despite the red haze he was still seeing, he started pulling out frozen pizzas from the freezer.

Somehow, despite the **many** incredible events of the day, Lang and Barton both were the most amazed they had been all day at the fact that Wakanda had frozen pizzas. Both of them were still muttering it half an hour later while they were eating it, and Sam and Steve both couldn’t stop laughing about the shocked look on the faces of two men.

“Barton, you literally fought aliens and are in the palace of a king, but you’re the most surprised by the fact that they have frozen pizzas?” Sam asked, still laughing after a particularly loud mumble of “goddamn frozen pizzas” had slipped around the food currently Barton’s mouth.

Barton, who was not looking at Sam, had not heard the comment, and that fact reminded Steve of the various things he needed to do now that he was back. He needed to see if Barton could get a pair of hearing aids, not to mention to see if he could help with finding Natasha. He also wanted to go talk to the doctors about both Wanda and Bucky. Plus, he needed to find places to stay for all of the people currently in his room, and by the looks of Lang, sleeping on his couch. He also needed to discuss the mission with T’challa, and finally, after everything else, he should probably go get that second therapy session done. Given that he would just be allowed to read, the possibility of brushing up on history seemed pleasant.

Sam was watching him, perhaps worried about Steve freaking out again, so he smiled a tiny, half-grin.

“Hey guys?” he asked. Sam prodded both Barton and Lang, to get their attention. “I have some stuff I need to get done, so I hope you guys don’t mind me leaving. There’s like five more pizzas in the fridge, and my bed is up for grabs. Sleep, eat, and relax. If you need me, or really anything, all you gotta do is ask one of the people around.”

Lang, suddenly fully awake, was lunging forward, racing to get to the bed before anyone else could claim it. Steve grinned, knowing full well Sam would probably go in there and dump him out of the bed sooner or later. He looked back to see that both Sam and Clint were nodding, followed by Sam gesturing for him to leave.

He turned and did a quick glance around of the tiny apartment-style bunking area. He stopped for a moment to peek into his bedroom and was greeted with heavy snores of an already deeply asleep Scott. Clearly, the man had barely slept while being held, and Steve figured that bed wasn’t going to be empty for a long time.

And so, throwing one last look back to see his friends, Sam still munching on pizza and Clint now snoring softly on the couch, he left. He was hoping that if he could stay busy enough, look like he was keeping his promise to T’challa, then maybe he would discontinue the “therapy” sessions.

Even as the thought this, he was wracked by guilt. Here he was, complaining, if only to himself, about therapy when he had just witnessed Wanda’s body, shriveled, damaged and thin in the extreme. He was lucky. Lucky that he was not in that prison beside his friends, though he deserved it (and worse).

He was lucky that Bucky was safe, lucky that he could save his friends, lucky that T’challa hadn’t just killed him and left. Luck seemed to follow him, and he determined that while he didn’t deserve it, his friends and teammates did. So he would put it to good use. Use it to help T’challa on missions, use it to help his friends to remain in safety, help Wanda in whatever way she needed, and most importantly, use it to save Bucky. Maybe he could stumble on some article on memory, if he just looked long enough.

And it was that thinking of his friends, he sat against the wall next to his door. Surely the person T’challa promised to send would be here soon.

But being in that room with his friends was..... too much. He had sat in silence, alone and pleasantly so, for nearly two months. To be around so many people, even if they were people he was grateful to see, was just…too much.

They took up so much space, beyond what their bodies took up. As if their simple presence expanded, like a gas, to fill his room to the brim. It was suffocating, really. I was hard to explain, but it was almost like…. their body heat felt like open flames to him, making the room unbearably hot when he had spent the last several months in the cool solitude of his room. Thoughts of heat turned his mind back to Bucky, who was currently in cryosleep.

He thought about joining him for the briefest of moments. What it would be like, to let the cold enclosed space to take him. How he would enjoy the way the frost crept through his veins, and what sweet relief it would be to simply _stop thinking_ for once.

He tried to banish the thought, but the idea was quite the snake, slithering through the tiny holes in his mind, insidiously telling him that it was okay to want to give up control. I _t’s not like it was permanent, anyways_. _And_ , it whispered, _when you awoke, Bucky would be there. You wouldn’t have to save him… he would be there already saved. You could just let go. Let someone else do the work for once…_

Steve shook his head; the way he’d seen lions do when the flies buzz around their face on those nature documentaries Clint was always watching.

He tried to shove the thoughts away, knowing that T’challa would never allow it, and besides that point, he had too much to do here. The simple fact was: he had a plan. It wasn’t a good one, and he didn’t particularly like it, but T’challa had given him a plan. Steve knew, instinctively, that this was the idea. He knew T’challa wanted him up and moving. King Kitty, as Sam had so kindly nicknamed him, wanted to keep Steve busy. For that, he was almost...grateful....happy even.

So he passed the time, mostly thinking about Bucky, and ways that he could remove the words.

Finally, he’d worked himself up into a frustrated frenzy, so he stood and tried to pace. There seemed to be no options. Bucky had words that would set him off. Sure he could burn the book, and hope no one else knew them, but that was far too risky. He paced just a bit faster, still agitated by the conundrum. Bucky could…..Bucky could….. Agh. He did not have a clue. Where is that person T’challa was supposed to send?!? He wanted to see Wanda. He wanted to think about something else. He wanted to… he wanted to sleep. He wanted to lie down, to go back to his catatonic state. He wanted to rip the words from Bucky’s mind, just so that he could have the only good thing in his life back.

He paced a bit faster, now nearly jogging back and forth across the lengthy hall. He wanted to not think for a while.

For the second time in his life, and once again revolving around needing Bucky back, he wanted to be drunk. Drunk enough to not feel the agitation, the anger, the guilt, all of it. Oddly enough, the sensations building up in his chest felt like he was losing Buck all over again. He was flat out running now, the hall never long enough to give him the release he needed before being forced to turn around. He ran as fast as he could now, easily covering the hall, which was likely a good three hundred feet, in a matter of seconds.

The steady _thumm, thumm, thumm, thumm_ of his feet hitting the carpet reminded him of where he was. Bucky was not dead. Bucky was still here, and there was something, if he thought hard enough, that he could do to really bring him back. He couldn’t do a damn thing for Peggy. She really was gone. But he could do something…. He just had to figure out what.

 _Thumm, thumm, thumm, Thu—_ his odd run was cut short when he heard someone else behind him. They were running, nearly keeping pace with him. He stopped instantly and wheeled around, instinct arising as the need to protect his back. The person who had been running behind suddenly ran past before skidding to a stop after a few seconds.

It was Aneka. Though about 50 feet in front of him now, he recognized her instantly, and let out a long whooshing breath. She watched him wary, just as he had been moments before.

“Captain….?” She asked softly. He wondered why she was being so soft and…. motherly? Was that the word? Perhaps gentle was a better one.

She approached him very slowly, as if afraid of him… for him? He wondered if his run had caused her some sort of worry. Finally, when she got close enough, she asked again, this time less formally.

“Steve?” He didn’t respond, still trying to figure out why she was acting as oddly as she was.

Surely he had not looked that odd. He had been running only to relieve the tension in his muscles, to remove thought from his mind. It can’t have frightened her; she was far fiercer than anyone he had known.

She kept approaching, now encroaching on his personal space. He almost stepped back, but she grabbed his arm and pulled him in for a hug. He could only think of one thing that would cause her to embrace him. His thoughts turned to flame now, with one thought screaming in his mind.

 Wanda

_Wanda_

_wanda_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised pain, right?


	11. Fading Glow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Chapter is named after the song by Skyforest. Enjoy the read!

The embrace lasted only a moment before she pulled away to look at him. Apparently, she could read the pain written on his face, but for a moment, she paused before speaking.

“Captain, it is okay! Wanda is fine. She is with the doctors now.”

Whatever fire had been consuming him died down a little, but confusion took its place. He realized then that he couldn't really understand why she'd acted the way she had. Why had she come to him, so softy, like his own mother had so many years ago, when she knew he was sick again?

“What is it then?” Steve demanded, angry now that she had led him to believe Wanda was dead.

“You were sprinting at 50 miles an hour down the hall. Never in my life have I watched a man run and cry at the same time. And I have seen a great many things, Rogers.” Her tone was almost joking, perhaps hoping that she could lighten the mood.

Steve touched his cheek, and was shocked when he felt the hot tears still rolling down his cheeks. He hadn't cried since Peggy’s funeral, which seemed a lifetime ago. It seemed odd, to realize he had been crying again, and to realize that Aneka had seen this apparent meltdown. As quickly as he could, he wiped the tears away from his face, angry now that he had let himself got so worked up, to let himself cry in front of another person.

She held him by his shoulder for a moment, and for a second, Steve allowed himself to be surprised. Sure, he had noticed that each member of the Dora Miliaje were tall, but he had not realized that Aneka was… actually taller than him. He tried to focus on her, the way she looked rather than the thoughts that had caused him so much frustration just moments ago. He appraised her appearance then, trying to catalog all the details. Her skin was the color of mocha, with reddish tattoos in odd shapes; they covered her angular, animalistic face and the rest of what he could see beneath her clothes. The tattoos only added to her generally fierce appearance, allowing her to look like someone who could probably kill him, if she wanted to. Her lips, currently set in a overtly neutral way, but they twitched frequently, and one look at them told him that at any moment they could curl into a snarl.

She seemed… angry. Really there was no better word. Now apparently past the “comforting-weird-momish-bodyguard-lady” thing, she was letting her actual emotion through. At this point, she had noticed him staring, and cocked her head to the side.

“What is it you are trying to accomplish, captain? You are not going to find answers by staring at me.”

But really he couldn’t muster the energy to try and figure out what had made her so angry, and just shrugged before asking “Look I have several things I have to take care of. Are you the one who’s supposed to be taking me?”

She nodded, still apparently irritated, and immediately set off in the direction of the nearest elevator.

He watched her walk away, and noticed an extremely slight, but noticeable limp in her step. He called for her to wait, curiosity now outweighing his own exhaustion and apathy.

“Aneka. Wait, please.” Steve spoke softly, but in the hushed halls, he knew it would carry to her.

She stopped walking but did not run to face him. He wondered if he had done something to offend her, maybe it was some cultural difference he had not seen, or maybe it was something that he missed in those 70 years he'd been in the ice.

“Did I do something? Why are you angry?”

He watched her shoulders rise and fall slowly as she sighed, though he couldn’t see her face, he could nearly hear her rolling her eyes. He walked over to her, now wanting to understand. He had obviously grown to like her, and she had just seen him vulnerable. He owed it to her not to treat her poorly. She deserved better. Once he reached her, she turned to face him, and he saw that she was still angry, but it was abundantly clear that the anger was misdirected.

Before she spoke, she leaned against the nearest wall and sank to the floor with another sigh. He sat next to her, and pieced together that her leg was hurting more than she let on, as she was exceedingly ginger with it as she crossed her legs.

“Not you. I am irritated with T’challa, really.”

“Oh?”

“I mean no offense, Rogers, but there are a great many things to be done in this world, and shepherding a man around a castle feels like a waste of my abilities. It is not to say I don’t like you, Rogers, it’s just that I was sent to make a change. I was sent to fight for my people, not to babysit a super-soldier.”

Guilt flooded through Steve’s system. Once more, he was responsible for making someone miserable. T’challa had already done so much, taken so many risks for him, and here he was, still asking for more. He took away this poor woman’s time, not to mention T’challa’s resources and his time too. It was no great wonder that she was angry.

“I’m so sorry” was all he could manage to say on the matter, knowing it wouldn’t change anything.

She shook her head vehemently but hesitated before speaking again.

“It isn’t you Rogers. Really. I am sorry. I think I have not been happy with my situation for a long time. I think.... I do not do well running missions. I am meant to stay in Wakanda, to protect the women here. I am not meant for all of this. I am meant to train my girls, make sure they don’t get hurt. I am meant to engineer weapons to protect my Dora Miliaje. I'm meant to be their trainer, to give them what they need to survive, not to run errands, like many of the missions I am sent on seem to be.”

He pieced it together quickly enough.

“Who got hurt?”

“I appreciate your concern, but I must withhold that information. I don’t think you would understand. But thank you, really. And I am sorry. I do like you captain. I already consider us friends, and I do not mind spending time with you. I just worry about my team, that is all.”

“Trust me, I understand. The Avengers were my team. I had to train them, and every time someone got hurt, I knew their blood and pain was on me. “

She smiled weakly at him, anger still present, but fading now. He got the feeling that she had just needed to vent. Despite everything, when she had seen that he was upset, she’d been there to comfort him. He was glad that he could do the same.

He stood, held out a hand, and helped her to her feet. He thought he might ask her what happened to her leg, but figured that would undoubtedly offend her, so he left it be. Regardless, he walked slower than he might have otherwise.

“Look, I have a lot of favors I need from the king, so if you want to go get someone else, you can. It’ll take a while.”

“I thought you just wanted to watch over the girl?”

“No. I realized a while ago there’s actually a lot I need to discuss with T’challa, and it takes precedence over me staring at her.”

She just shrugged. “I can take you to T’challa if you want, but he probably doesn’t have a lot of time. He’s already given the staff the order that you are to be given whatever you ask for, within reason.”

Steve was shocked again by the kindness of the warrior-king. Again and again T’challa gave far more than he received, which made him feel guilty. He didn't deserve all of this.

She watched him, and after a moment, she said “Well? What is it you need?”

He gathered his thoughts as she unlocked the door to the odd door-elevator.

“It’s a long list.” He said, almost apologetically.

She just nodded, and gestured for him to speak as the whirr of the elevator began to descend towards them.

“I need hearing aids for Clint- “Aneka’s eyebrows shot up and she interrupted, asking “He is deaf?”

“It’s not popular knowledge, I guess. Yeah, there was a mission where he blew his own ear out to prevent the enemy from brainwashing him. Guy is a hero for what he did, and he still can barely hear. They took his hearing aids at the prison so he needs a new set if he’s going to be able to help.”

“Help with what?”

“Oh yeah. He wants to know if he can join the search for Natasha?”

Aneka actually looked a little relieved at the inquiry.

“That was something I was supposed to bring up. People know that they are good friends, and T’challa had hoped that Clint would aid the search. I think he was worried that the Widow would be too hard to find without Clint.”

Steve’s emotions mirrored Aneka’s as the relief spread through his body. That squared away two of the problems he had to deal with.

“Well thats good then. And you are taking me to T’challa, right?” He asked

Aneka nodded in confirmation, and with that, the elevator doors opened, and she stepped inside. He followed behind her and as she started the long process of unlocking their passage upwards.

He left the space silent, somehow comfortable around her as he could not be around many others. It was odd, he realized, how quickly they had become close. He got the distinct feeling that he was the only person she’d told about needing to stop running missions. And still, he had let he see, if inadvertently, exactly how frustrated he was with his own situation.

They were much closer than he’d thought, and much closer than he’d allowed himself to be to anyone since Natasha.

He thought maybe... it was good. While he did not, of course, know everything about this warrior-woman, he could tell that she was unhappy. She had T’challa, which was obviously nothing more than a friendly business relationship, and her team, which she was the leader of, rather than friends with. Perhaps she was close to someone, but it seemed unlikely. She was… lonely, he ventured. Not that he would ever share these deductions with her, as she probably would not take kindly to the numerous assumptions he’d just made.

And yet, even as he analyzed their apparent friendship, he could feel the heat. The same as back in the little living space now filled with his friends, he could feel her body heat, rolling off her in waves that quickly became stifling.  It seemed that nowhere was cold anymore, not even the metal box they were traveling in.

He missed it. It was a great comfort, to feel the gusts of wind in Brooklyn.

He remembered the many winters he’d spent shivering, wishing for summer before the serum. The way he had tried to wrap himself up, and the many, many embarrassing nights that the weather was too harsh for him, and he had been forced to accept Buck's offer to sleep in the same bed, for warmth. He longed for it: the winters of the war, when he’d had the hard ground and nothing else to sleep on, and how odd it was to realize later, once he’d been unfrozen, that he missed the war.

Well not the war, really. He missed his Brooklyn. He missed the cold. Someone somewhere had once told him that the world was heating up, and that’s why it wasn’t genuinely cold anymore. He missed the chill that seemed to live in his bones, the way that even Buck would shiver once and a while.  
All in all, he missed the cold, the ice and snow. Wakanda was in the middle of a blistering summer, and it seemed that as he gathered his friends, their warmth only added to the way the heat seemed to gather up, to seep into his skin and smother him.

....Just once, he let himself drift back to the idea of cryosleep.

Bucky got to run away from his problems, got to stay in the frozen sleep, somewhere Steve couldn’t follow. Steve wanted to join him. His whole body, down to his very bones ached at the idea of finally letting go to the sweet unconsciousness of being frozen in time….

“Rogers!”

The call interrupted his internal monologue, and for a single irrational moment, Steve was afraid Aneka had heard his thoughts and was going to send him straight to the therapist.

This was not the case as she was smiling at him, and had been apparently trying to get his attention.

“You must be quite tired Rogers” She laughed out, her words so lighthearted it caught him off guard. The emotional whiplash was startling and he shook his head, trying to catch up to Aneka’s good mood.

It was obvious that telling Steve what was bothering her and some silence had been just what she’d needed, and so he tried to keep up with her long strides as she walked quickly towards a door at the end of the hallway. Never before had he met a woman as tall as himself, and he chuckled at his own surprise every time he was forced to acknowledged it.

She was cheered but his obvious mood change, and said “Glad to see you awake. I’m going to take you to T’challa, and leave you there. I have quite a bit to do myself, and T’challa can call someone to take you to see the Sokovian girl.”

By the end of her statement they were standing in front of the tall heavy wood doors that must have led to wherever T’challa was. He nodded his thanks, and she left him to stand by the doors.He raised his hand to knock on the oak, and the resounding thud that accompanied each knock reverberated down the now empty and silent hall.

It seemed momentous, despite the upcoming meeting being nothing more than a debriefing on the mission. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not the full chapter, and I apologize!!! I wanted to write more but the week got very hectic, but I'm writing the next few chapters right now, and I'll probably post another one in the next day or two, so keep an eye out for that!  
> Sorry I didn't actually kill off Wanda, I wanted to, but I'm trying to write this as a somewhat-plausible followup to the established story line, and I just don't see them killing her off anytime soon. But you enjoyed the pain right??


	12. Chapter 11.5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY. I promised to post this earlier but I totally forgot! I was in the middle of writing the next chapter, and I went to post it, and realized I had completely forgotten this one! Whoops! So you know, here! Its pretty much an exact continuation of the previous chapter, which shouldn't really count as a chapter by itself.

Together they walked into room, which despite the massive sturdy doors, was nothing but a study, or perhaps an office. No larger than any other normal study, the furthest wall was glass, which Steve was quickly realizing was a common choice for the palace. The other three walls were covered in bookshelves, filled to the brim with both ancient looking brittle scrolls and the more modern books and tablets. He wondered at the tablets, knowing how much information could be stored there, exactly what they must contain, given that there were entire shelves dedicated to stacks of tablets. The sheer information housed in the room would take him another 70 years to read through.   
As he marveled at even this simple room, T’challa moved to sit at the couch in the corner and gestured for Steve to join him on the adjacent couch. He walked slowly, just taking in his surrounding slowly. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was already planning escape after escape for any situation his brain could come up with. He pushed this to the back of him mind (but did not stop the process) and sat next to the king, who was typing something into a tablet.   
The king looked up from the tablet and asked “is there anything you want to eat? Anything to drink?”   
Steve, despite feeling odd at actually accepting the offer, responded with “water, if that is okay.”   
The king nodded, typed another quick word and set the tablet away.   
“Aright let’s begin. I do not know if you have yet considered this, but given time, it will be obvious that that I and my people were a part of this. It will take even more time, and various political maneuvers before they come, but make no mistake that they will come for you.”   
Steve nodded and apologized “You have done too much for me and my teammates. We can leave, it that will make things easier on you. The Wakandan people didn’t sign up for a war.”   
“Yes, Rogers, they did. I’ve known from the beginning what this would mean, me taking you in. I choose it anyway. Stay, help my people, see that no one here views you as the bad guy. We, a nation united to house you, because we knew that you were in the right.”   
Steve frowned, but kept his many objections to himself. Clearly this was not something that was going to be negotiable.   
T’challa acknowledged the frown with a returning smile, and said “Steve, it will be okay. You need a safe place to stay. I, with my people’s full support, am willing to protect you.”  
“But you’ve done so much more than protect us. I apologize for everything, for the frustration and the danger I’ve brought on you.”   
T’challa shook his head, now irritated with Steve’s constant apologies. “Rogers! If you would listen for a moment, I would like to explain why I have done what I have.”   
Steve’s frown deepened, but he acquiesced.   
“I took you in for a great number of reasons. First of all, yes, I have sacrificed some to house you, but it is nothing to what I gain in return. Most, and I do say most for a reason, of my people are on board. I have made numerous announcements on the situation, so they all know the extent of your and Bucky’s innocence. Furthermore, I have told them the full length of the accords, and the depth to witch it would subject me, both as king and as warrior, to the will of others, and they see that my father was wrong. I see that my father was wrong.”  
“From the beginning, I knew that I did not accept the way that the diplomats were treating this. We watched the fall of SHEILD, and I know, deep down, that the accords would have gone much the same way. They would have been corrupted by people who wanted to use the enhanced for their own ends. I’ve explained all of this to you before, but it stands true. The accords were inherently flawed, and I stood under my father’s influence too long, and did not realize how much it would damage the perilous nature of the world we previously held. We no longer have the avengers by any means, and we no longer have anyone to look out for the people of the world, despite the fact that we are still in danger on that scale.”   
“We need people to protect us, and the accords would not truly allow for that. Once I saw that, I knew that if I could bring some under my protection, under my care, I could ensure that, even if it is to a lesser extent, we could have a team of enhanced people looking out for the world again.”  
“I know that may sound like I am looking to control that team, but in reality I want to be a part of a team, not the leader. I could stand to follow some orders for once. But I digress. The point being that Earth needs protection again, and I feel that having you, myself, and your friends together could be that protection, though I know that it will not be what the Avengers was, but it will have to do.”  
“Beyond that was the personal debt I owed to your Bucky. I had multiple opportunities, and did try to kill him. I could have, and would have taken his life, and yours if you had gotten in the way, because I couldn’t control myself, or wait to hear the full story. I owe you both immeasurably, because you never attacked me with the same intent to kill. Down to my core, I owe you immeasurably.”  
“Those are my main reasons, though I have more. All of my advisors stood behind you from the beginning, but at that point my Father was still ruler, so I could not make any decisions. I have a lot of guilt over it, but please, do not think I’m only doing it because of that.”   
“Now, can we discuss the mission or are you determined to revel in pity and guilt?”   
Steve’s only reaction to the longest speech he’d heard from the King was a shocked silence, which to T’challa, was as good as a yes, so he continued with his lengthy monologue.   
“As for the mission, obviously it went well. There was, of course, the matter of the Witch’s health. She will be cared for extensively. My doctors are currently working with her, and she is sleeping through it all. We are placing you as the designated medical proxy for her, which means that if any medical decisions must be made, you are the one to call what happens, with advice of course. She is currently in critical condition, but they are sure she will stabilize, given time.”   
“As for the current response. We know that Senator Ross has been notified, as has Stark. Both are certain it was you, as is pretty obvious. I believe that my involvement has been discovered as well. I do not know what this means for my country, as no action has been taken yet. That could change at any time. I am prepared, but I want you to be as well, and if your friends want to be included, please tell them to be ready at a moment’s notice.”   
Finally, T’challa stopped talking, and let the immense amount of information just settle in.   
Steve took a deep breath and ran through the information quickly, and decided that now was the time to ask for what he needed.   
“Thank you so much. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. You have done too much for us, but I appreciate it. We will all be ready for anything you need us to do. But about my friends. I really can’t keep them all in my room, but I don’t know what your plans are.”   
T’challa frowned, and immediately responded “It completely slipped my mind. The hall you are in is just a housing area. Each door is an apartment much like yours. I will have one set up for each of your teammates, and one ready for the Witch when she heals. Hold on one moment.”   
Steve watched as the man pulled out the tablet again, and pulled up something. He couldn’t see what, but T’challa started typing furiously for a long while. But quickly enough, the man set the tablet away and resumed talking.   
“As we speak someone is getting the rooms ready, and will come by to give you the keys to each. Also, I’m going to give you a tablet and a phone for each of your teammates, so that whenever you need something, of if I need to contact you I can. Big or small, anything you need you can get from here.”   
“Again, this is beyond what we deserve, thank you so much.” Steve was amazed over and over by the generosity of the warrior king. “Is there anything I can do in return?”   
“No, not now. See to your friends, make sure they have what they need. Earlier I got a message that Clint wanted to join the search for Romanov?”  
“Yes. He thinks that because he knows a lot of her contacts and hidey-holes, he might be able to point your men in the right direction.”  
“He is welcome to join. We will get him hearing aids as soon as possible, and we’ll have him on the search immediately. Please, thank him for me. I owe that woman as much as I owe you, and I hope harm does not come to her before we can help.”   
At that point, a small boy, probably no more than 14 came in, and handed the keys to T’challa, with a respectful “Your majesty” before turning to stare at Steve. Though his heart wasn’t really in it, he gave the boy a smile, and watched as he went beet-red and walked quickly out of the room. A real smile split his face in amusement at the boy’s action. Nobody had done that in a while, it was almost refreshing.  
T’challa was watching with amusement as well, but he stood and walked over to the desk in the corner, and gestured for Steve to follow. So he stood, and walked the small distance to the desk, where T’challa was rummaging through a deep drawer. Steve caught a glimpse of a picture on his desk, of that same white-haired “mutant” that Aneka had told him about. Storm? He wondered about her obvious significance to T’challa, but filed it away for later consideration as T’challa had stopped looking through his drawers and pulled out a bag.   
He began placing the tablets and cell phones into the bag, and proceeded to hand the bag over to Steve.   
“Here. They’re all labeled for you. Take them back to your friends, rest for a bit, and when you are ready, just use the tablet to find your way to the witch girl. There’s a map on every device, but your tablet has a more in depth map, with some of the hidden locations you’ve seen already. Please be careful, and I want to thank you again for ensuring that the mission went smoothly.”   
The dismissal was obvious, so Steve smiled at the king and said “Thank you for rescuing my friends. I appreciate what you have done here beyond measure.”   
The king, already occupied with the giant holographic computer screen he had projected, just nodded and said “Farewell.”   
Steve turned his back to the king and walked out, wondering how Wanda and Bucky were doing. Unfortunately, they would have to wait just a little longer so he could settle the somewhat healthier friends into their new home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey-o! Thanks for reading. Just a warning, I am moving out of my house for my second year of university! Very exciting and all that jazz, but I will be much busier than I have been. Tonight I'm hoping to crank out a good few chapters that way I have a cushion if I can't find the time to write, but I'm warning you, I may miss a deadline here and there, so be patient. If I decided to discontinue the story, I won't just drop it, I'll let you guys know, I promise. But for now, I don't see that happening. Just lots of angsty gay no-homo-bros trying to evade their feelings. And yes, the romance is coming soon! Like, I dunno, maybe in the next chapter? Maybe in the one after that? (Insert suspenseful music here) Much thanks to the few readers. I love all of you.


	13. Where Silent Gods Stand Guard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WSGSG is by Amon Amarth. Enjoy!

Despite the many pressing matters, Steve took the time to just wander back, allowing the information, the sheer volume of what had occurred in the last day or so to soak into his weary, overwhelmed mind. Sure, he could process information faster than most computers, but that didn’t mean that he had to all the time. It was exhausting.

So he took his time, making sure that he remembered everything, and when that was finished, he just let his thoughts return to Bucky. He found they did that a lot.

He thought back to Siberian warehouse where he’d fought Tony, and the cramped elevator ride that honestly took a little piece of his soul. Both of them knew that they were almost no match for the soldiers contained within, but they went anyway. He’d wanted to ask Bucky if he’d gone with him just because he felt responsible, or because he knew it was the right thing to do. The insidious whispers in the back of his mind wanted to know if Bucky had come along just to be with him again. He tried to shut that away, but it always showed up again, when there was only the quite white noise, nothing to block out the curiosity.

Of course, Steve wanted Bucky to be the same, but that, he knew, was impossible. He wanted Bucky to understand that every move he made, he understood what it meant, and that Buck, under every circumstance was worth it. Steve was ashamed to admit that he’d have let his friends get captured again and again if it meant that he could keep Buck. He was ashamed to admit that no matter what he had to give to keep Bucky alive, he would. His title as Captain, the serum that made him who he was, anything he had to give, if it just meant that Buck might be happy and alive.

His mind flashed back to what both Aneka and T’challa had said about him. That it was a lot to give, even for a best friend. He knew it was true, but he couldn’t really imagine another path. This man, had somehow followed him, past death, and through seventy years of torture. He’d gotten through it all, only to think he wasn’t worthy? As if he hadn’t been the best thing to happen to Steve, over and over.

He was frustrated now, mostly with himself. He hadn’t been able to form the right words, to tell Buck why he was worth it all and more. He just couldn’t really explain, so he tried to joke, tried to bring up that story about the girl. He hadn’t even remembered her, but somehow the memory of Steve screwing up with the hotdogs had gotten through. He grinned widely at the thought, though he didn’t really know why. Even weird memory issues Bucky was still the best thing to happen to him. The thought made the old ache return.

He sped up now, trying to push back any thoughts of Buck. He knew, despite everything, whoever that man was, it was not just Bucky. He shared his mind with more, and that wasn’t safe.

“He wasn’t safe” became his mantra as he hurried back to his room, trying to keep the reminder fresh so that he wouldn’t consider what the little whispers wanted him too. They wanted him to join Bucky. They wanted him to pull buck out of cryostasis. “He wasn’t safe, he wasn’t safe, he wasn’t safe” Steve whispered again and again, eventually matching it to his hurried footsteps.

The mantra faded as he arrived back at the door to his rooms. He knocked quietly, and after a moment, was met by a weary looking Sam. They smiled at one another and Steve walked back into the apartment.

His walk back was relatively warm, but the stifling heat created by the immense number of bodies in such a tight space was almost overwhelming.  He tried to push back what was quickly becoming an obsession with temperature, and focus on Sam.

Sam was leaning against the kitchen counter, and was apparently waiting on Steve to explain what was going on.

He pulled out each of the tablets, each one of them had the names of his teammates printed on the back in neat, black letters.

“King T’challa gave each of us a tablet, so if we need anything, we can just order it. Plus, apparently you can get anything you want on the tablet.”

Steve almost chucked as Sam’s eyebrows rose to a height he didn’t think the human face could accommodate.

“So King Kitty is being nice?”

In response, Steve pulled out a key labeled “WILSON, 115”, to which was apparently was not the response Sam had expected.

“Damn” was all Sam could muster, before taking the key with a somewhat abashed look on his face.

“There’s a room, tablet and phone for everyone.”

“Wow. Just…. wow.”

“I know. Want me to walk with you to your room?”

A quick nod was all Wilson could apparently manage, and both left Steve’s apartment/room to see Sam’s, who was, apparently, his neighbor.

And, as was immediately apparent, the room really was set for him. When they opened the door, there was a stack of papers waiting on the counter with various lists of things he could do in Wakanda, along with a very cheeky statue of a bird in the corner with a note attached.

Sam walked over to the statue, and read the note before bursting out into huge bursts of laughter.

Steve walked over to see what was apparently so funny, and read the note aloud.

“Hope you like the statue bird brain.   -King Kitty”

Steve wondered how T’challa had even known about the less than flattering nickname, but just let it go and laughed for a moment alongside his longtime friend.

After a moment, when the bursts of laughter seemed to fade away, Sam looked up at Steve, and seemed to sober up.

“You doing alright man?” He asked, no trace of laughter left on his face.

Steve reached over and clapped him on the shoulder. 

“Look, I’m gunna go get those idiots up and show them their places. Get some rest Sam. I’ll come visit you later.”

Sam didn’t really seem to notice the evasion, as the true extent of his exhaustion slipped through the cracks and he yawned, nodded and headed back to the door with Steve.

“Thanks for everything Rogers.”

Steve nodded at him and walked out, happy to hear the soft _click_ of the door locking behind him. Sam was set for the next several hours. Now to settle in the other two.

He walked back in, only to find Clint wide awake and sitting at the counter, looking a little surprised. There, in front of him, lay the tablet, key and cellphone that Sam had, but in addition were two little hearing aids. They were so tiny, and Clint held a paper with their instructions on it. As Steve entered, Clint looked up and held on finger up, telling him to wait just a moment. Steve shrugged and moved on to Lang, who was still completely out, splayed eagle on his bed.

Steve knocked on the door multiple times before finally calling out “Hey! Lang!” to which Lang said

“Cassie I just need five more minutes, please”

Steve snorted and said “Lang, come on. Rise and shine.”

Lang responded by just rolling directly off the bed and hitting the floor with a loud _thump_.

Without the serum, he would have missed the soft “Fuck” whispered by Scott, who was now, apparently awake. He watched on with a bemused smile as Lang stood up and had to disentangle himself from the knot of sheets and blankets that had fallen with him off the bed. His hair stuck out at odd angles, and for a moment, Steve remembered the mornings he’d shared with Buck. This was essentially the same, dark brown hair at crazy angles, language totally unbecoming of any catholic, and a total hatred of anything to do with waking up.

He wondered if the new Buck was the same way.

Lang was now staring at him, also confused.

“Look man, I’m too tired for whatever has you smiling like a psychopath. Please tell me there’s food out there.”

Steve frowned at the man, but ushered him back towards the kitchen where Clint was still avidly reading the paper in front of him. Steve gestured at the small pile of tech waiting for Scott.

“It’s all yours. If you want to contact anyone here, you can. The tablet is so you can order what you need, food, clothes, books, etc. and the most important part,” he said, pausing to hold up the key “is your own place.”

Lang looked as shocked as Sam had, but combined with the hair style, it looked like he actually had been…. Well…. Shocked. Steve suppressed a chuckle at that, and walked with Lang down to the apartment he’d been assigned, which was two doors down from Sam, and across the hall.

The door opened to a similar layout, although his glass wall opened up to show the skyline of a city, rather than the wilderness that he’d seen from his own window. Scott seemed to be overexcited about the new place, and Steve filed away a metal note that the man really and truly was a child at heart, despite his status as an ex-con, and apparently, a father.

His excitement was short lived, as he had discovered his own bed, and waved to Steve before quite literally falling onto the bed.

Steve grinned and left, leaving the tech on the counter beside the key. He returned to his apartment once more, hoping Clint was finished with the hearing aids. When he returned, the man was gone. Amused, he checked the apartment he’d been assigned to.

Upon opening the door, he had to laugh. The room had a higher ceiling than the rest, and had multiple ledges, some by the window, but most were just high up. It was clear that the room was well picked, as Clint was already in the room, on one of the upper ledges. The “Hawk” had already moved multiple pillows up to the ledge, which Steve realized was the highest one, and was sitting comfortably, munching on an apple and reading something on his tablet. Clearly, he’d learned something of independence from Nat and didn’t need him.

Nonetheless he entered and waved at Clint. He looked up and smiled.

“They picked a damn good room for me, huh?” He said, laughing.

“So the hearing aids work? The room is fine?”

Clint just shrugged. “I’m fine. No need to baby me. I’m working with the search team right now. I gave them a couple leads. I’m going to meet a few people in the morning and head out to look for her.”

Steve was stunned. “Well that was fast. Guess you’re okay then. Update me if you find Nat.”

Barton nodded and resumed reading on his tablet, so Steve just walked out, feeling pretty damn good. He’d taken care of everyone, and could now see to Wanda. The pull towards her was strong, and he knew he wanted to stand by her. He knew it was his fault, and that she should have someone there to watch out for her.

He walked back to his apartment, and retrieved his own tablet. He fumbled with the technology for a moment before figuring out how to pull up the map and setting off for the hospital area.

The walk was surprisingly short, and he found himself walking through a final set of giant oaken doors, only to enter the stereotypical sterile white walls of any normal hospital.

A helpful receptionist pointed him in the right direction and as he walked towards the room.

Outside her room were the two Dora Milaje that had taken her there in the first place. He was shocked to see them still standing watch over the young witch, and couldn’t help but feel overwhelmingly touched.

They only nodded to him and began to walk away. One stopped and turned to say “Your watch. Keep her safe. Let us know if you need to leave.” Her speech was halted and was intensely emotional, which surprised Steve. Wanda seemed to have an intense effect on the people around her, one way or another.

When he walked in, he suddenly understood the motherly attitude that they’d shown her. She was so small, curled up on the bed, with bandages covering her neck. Further inspection revealed what he hadn’t been able to see in the orange jumpsuit she’d been in earlier. Enormous, purple, yellow and black bruises covered her, the hospital gown displaying them, thin enough that he could see that they continued, painting her skin violet and black for the entirety of her arms, legs, back and stomach. Bandages wrapped around her forearms and wrists on her right arm, and a cast encircled her left arm. Her right knee was braced, and her left thigh was wrapped in more gauze, which extended past her knee and half way down her shin.

Overall, the sight of her reminded him of a baby bird, one that had fallen and lost its feathers.

He sat down and continued to watch her from the corner. Her breaths were so shallow, and all color had been drained from her face. Her skin was so thin, her bones stuck out at odd angles.

Suddenly he was facing the barbed wire fences. The Howling Commandos were attempting to liberate a Nazi concentration camp, and they were under fire but all Steve could see was the little boy. No more than 13, his body was lying in the dirt beside the fence. His bones were visible beneath the thin pale skin.

Yet even as he watched the apparently dead boy looked up at him and forced another breath. Bullets pierced the air and he heard explosions from his left but none of it matched the way the young boy’s breath rattled in and out. It was the only thing Steve could hear, so loud it was. This tiny boy, no more than a skeleton rattled another breath, and another, and his stare, flat, but still almost hopeful told Steve that each breath was for him. That boy was forcing life into his bones on the bare hope that perhaps there was a savior after all. Somehow he got to the boy, he watched as the boy rolled over, and gazed up at him. The only thing he could see were bones. All angles, jutting out, nearly piercing the brittle skin that encased the child he now held. He raised a bottle of water to the boy’s parchment lips but he would not drink. Instead he began mumbling “Chroń mnie. Ja nadal oddycha. Zachowaj mnie oddycha. Chroń mnie. Chroń mnie.”

Despite not knowing the language, the words were burned into his mind. It was the only thing he could hear for weeks to come. It was the only thing he could hear when the land mine to his left exploded, ripping the fragile child to pieces, and rendering him inert for nearly a week. That whole week he had nothing to do but remember that boy and his words, the way his skin and bones had caved under his gentle touch, followed by the way his skin had caved into the explosion.

And suddenly as it had come, the flashback faded away, leaving him shaking, tears pouring down his face. He rocked back and forth, trying to force the memories and the words of the young boy out if his mind. He tried to keep this away from his teammates. He knew that sure, Sam would understand. But it wasn’t the same. No one now could comprehend what the war had taken from him, and what it had replaced. It was not, by any means, the glamour that the films had made it out to be. Some days were worse than others, when the war would win and it would be all he could think of. Those days he thought he might understand what Bucky lived daily.

He pushed those thoughts away as well and tried to focus on grounding himself. He’d read in the internet that it was helpful in keeping you in the real world. One of the walls was tiled green and white, so he counted the green tiles for a time.

Eventually the counting was consuming, and once he finished, the memories were safely tucked away, locked in a drawer he refused to open. It was then, and only then that he allowed himself to look back at the fragile, sleeping woman in front of him.

He found that he could, indeed, look at her once more without being forced into a flashback. Given that, he simply watched her. Her breaths were ragged, her hair unkempt and patchy, completely gone in some areas, and greying in others. This sight bothered him immensely, and for a long while he just watched her until a nurse came in.

The nurse, an elderly looking woman, smiled at him.

“I am glad you are here to oversee her Captain. I’m just here to give her some more pain medication, and some medication to keep her sedated. She’d go into shock if she awoke anytime soon.”

He just nodded before asking “I don’t know if you know about her condition but I have a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

 She smiled again but shook her head. “I just read the charts and follow what the doctors order. I’ll send one to answer your questions. Will you stay here?”

“Of course. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No. I’ve already done everything that can be done right now. Let me go get that doctor.”

Steve nodded, grateful that he could get some answers. It could not have been a minute after the nurse had left that a doctor walked in to see him.

Steve stood and walked over to shake the woman’s hand. She smiled at him, in the same fond manner as the old nurse had but wasted no time in introductions.

“Well met, Captain. I know you are worried. Ask away.”

 “How bad was her neck?”

Her smile faded and quickly returned as an angry grimace. “It was extremely bad. She will be scarred permanently. We had to go inside to remove the dead skin, and to repair the veins and arteries there. Furthermore, we had to place skin grafts in some areas which will heal, but cause similar scars. What they did was inexcusable.”

This was what he’d been expecting, so he attempted to push the anger from his mind and asked “What about the other bandages? What are they for?”

“Let’s see... Well we took the skin grafts for the repair of her neck from her left thigh and down to the shin. We had to take quite a bit, unfortunately. The bandages around her wrists and ankles are due to the intense wounds created by her resisting the restraints. Her left arm was broken in both bones and the wrist. My best guess is that at some point, she had a seizure, and the pressure she was exerting from her muscles against the restraints was too much, and her own muscles snapped her bones. From calcification growth, I’d say it was recent, no more than a week old.”

Steve’s mind fuzzed on the line of pure anger and worry for the tiny, bird-like girl lying behind him. This time, the doctor spoke without prompting.

“She will recover, Captain. It will take months, but she will recover. I would hazard to guess that full speech might take much longer, and due to the atrophy of her muscles, physical therapy will be a necessity for at least a year. She will survive. I promise you. Given her enhanced ability, I imagine that she may heal even faster than we predict.”

Steve nodded, silent and angry at what they had done.

The doctor watched him sit, and before leaving said “I support you, and what you had to do. Just remember the cost.”

All his anger dissipated as he watched her shudder through another breath. She shivered violently, and he immediately retrieved a blanked and cocooned her in it.

He counted each of her breaths for a long while before fading into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo! I know I've listed this in the Stucky tag, and I'm sorry that we are 14 chapters in and Bucky isn't even in the story yet. I didn't really realize how much was going to have to be set up before we could get to the Stucky stuff. I started writing and it just got away from me. Next chapter involves a time skip, and we'll be very close to getting all our characters. Sorry its taking so long, and I hope you guys are still interested.


	14. Enclosured

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enclosured is by Hideous Divinity. Enjoy!

It was a full month before the doctors decided it would be safe for Wanda to wake, and for most of that time, Steve was with her. He considered himself lucky that T’challa did not ask anything of him. He spent most of his day by her side, hoping she could, in some way sense his presence. His only breaks were for showers (as begged by the nurses) and the bi-weekly “therapy” sessions.

Those were actually pleasant as he usually spent most of the session reading about what he’d missed while unconscious in the ice. He’d nearly hit the 50’s now. Each facet of history was fascinating to Steve, so he tried to consume every ounce of knowledge before moving on to the next decade. For his part, Doc Samson just let him do what he wanted to, only occasionally making small talk or mentioning something about the world’s history that he’d missed.

As for the time he spent with Wanda, he just watched her, or slipped back into the recesses of his mind where the cold awaited. Each day was becoming easier as she healed, but was still by no means easy, as the first flashback had certainly not been the last. They were receding now in favor of present hurts. Bucky was still in cryostasis and Steve was still as frustrated as ever. It was simple… There was no way to remove a man’s memories safely. Despite the advanced level of the Wakandan society, the best scientists were at a loss. They’d finished the arm quickly, prepped it for instillation, but they still needed Bucky.

Problem was, Steve still needed Bucky. There were so many times that he would remember little things, like Buck’s passion for science, and want to show him some new experiment that he’d read about in the history books.

On the other hand, there were many times that joining Bucky was the only thing he could think of. The call of cryostasis grew each day, no matter how hard he fought. The prospect got better with each monotonous day. They blended into one another, and it seemed even having his friends did nothing to help. Clint was still away, searching for Natasha. Sam was now working all the time at a VA center for Wakandan people. He was even learning the language, and was nearly fluent (given the aid of compete immersion). As for Scott… He was with Steve most days. Well in reality he was with Wanda. Always watching over her, talking to the nurses, doing all he could to speed her to health.

Steve was a passive figure to the nurses and to wanda. He could think of nothing to do but stay by her side. Scott, on the other hand to the active approach. He started working with the nurses, being trained in how to heal someone. It seemed obvious to Steve that there was more to the story than what little he’d been told on the day of the mission. Originally he’d assumed that maybe Scott had feelings for the young woman. While odd, he couldn’t really think of any ulterior motive to the extensive lengths that Scott was going to care for her.

Eventually, his curiosity had built up enough to actually confront Scott about the odd situation. That in and of itself was quite the experience. The normally joking and sarcastic manner that Scott seemed to carry with him everywhere had dropped away in less than a second. For the first several questions, he responded vaguely, refusing to make eye contact. But Steve’s curiosity pushed him to keep trying and after several moments, he’d finally gotten the answer he’d been looking for. The memory was one he played back to himself often.

Scotts eyes had slowly shifted up to finally look up at Steve. His mouth curved upwards, and his eyes had crinkled in a very genuine smile, but he seemed on the verge of tears.

“I… ah…” He’d coughed awkwardly before continuing “I have a daughter, back in the States. I know I’d have killed someone if this had happened to my daughter. I guess just…. knowing that she doesn’t have anyone to defend her, and watching her wither away like that. It was like she was my kid, ya know? Some days, when I hadn’t slept in a long while, I’d look through that window, and I’d see my daughter in chains, instead of Wanda. I couldn’t ever let that go. Every time I look at her I see my daughter. Most days it seems like she just has me and you.”

His words had perfectly imprinted themselves in Steve’s mind, replaying any time he almost felt happy. It was just another reminder of exactly what his team was paying just so he could save Buck. Scott, despite seeming jovial, had witnessed something terrible, and beyond that, he had been taken away from his daughter. There was no telling when, or even if, he would ever be able to go back to see her. Just another person’s life he had ruined in his own quest for justice. He couldn’t help but wonder how many lives he had destroyed in the process of getting Bucky back. He knew that he’d destroy a thousand more if he had to. He tried not to think about that.

Nevertheless, he stood by her, and by Scott, trying to make up for what he’d done to the both of them. They were less than 24 hours from waking her from her induced coma, and Steve was getting twitchy. Each moment that ticked by, Steve spent wondering how she would react to his presence. He kept imagining scenes of anger, where she (rightfully) blames him and refuses to speak to him, and scenes of sadness, where the Wanda he knew does not come back with her. The hours ticked by, each passing minute tormenting Steve, reminding him of the damage he’d caused. The nearer the hour got, the more fidgety Scott got. Only a matter of minutes before the medicine wore off, Scott left. It was less than dramatic, his only statement being “I leave you with her” before quietly walking off, deeper into the palace.

The final moment passed, and Steve watched as her eyelids fluttered, eyes rolling in her sockets a bit before _finally_ , she blinked, staring into the bright hospital lights. Turning her head, she saw Steve and she opened her mouth but no sound came out. Her brow furrowed and she tried again “…..pietro?”

Before he could come up with a proper apology, a good response, a doctor knocked at the door rapidly. Annoyed, Steve turned to see Scott standing there, with a broad smile on his face. With only a hint of relief, Steve walked to the door, nearly glad to have an excuse to avoid whatever reaction she might have to his presence. Once out, Scott whispered “They’re back.”

“Who?”

“Barton and Romanova. He found her. Look I’ll stay with her. She won’t remember a damn thing. Go talk to Romanova. She wants to see you.”

With a quick grin, one more reminiscent of the ones he’d seen in the past, Scott slipped into the room where Wanda lay, still staring up at the ceiling.

Steve watched her breathe for a moment, falling into his habit of counting her breaths. A few seconds later, he turned around, determined now to face the Widow.

He walked as quickly as he could towards the warrior-king’s office, all the while dreading what was to come from Nat. Knowing what he’d done to her, and knowing she would be the only one to hold him accountable, the upcoming conversation was guaranteed to be one of the worst she’d dealt out. 

All to soon he was standing before the giant oaken doors that led to the king’s office. He hesitated before attempting to turn his muscles to steel and walking into the room.

She stood waiting for him, arms crossed, with a steely-eyed Clint standing behind her. Closer inspection revealed what her short sleeved shirt couldn’t hide. Purple bruises crisscrossed her skin suspiciously similar to large finger prints. Her upper lip was spilt and despite the fierce scowl she wore, he could tell that she was in pain.

His breath (and courage) left him as she stood, and walked over to him. She continued to glare at him before opening her mouth to speak.

“It is your fault, and yours alone, that your own teammates are in this situation.”

Each word felt like a blow, and he knew it was true.

“I know.”

She blinked, which was the only indication that was not the response she was expecting, before continuing.

“Just understand what you did. T’challa is a better man than I. I might not have taken you in.”

The way she stood, still and imposing made it clear that she expected him to defend himself, or respond at the least.

“I already told you. I know what I did, and I know that you paid for it. All of you. I don’t have anything to offer but an apology. I’m sorry, Nat. I’m so sorry.”

She nodded, and opened her mouth to continue, but a hand appeared on her shoulder. Clint stood behind her, and when she whirled around to glare at him, he only shook his head and turned to look at Steve.

“She’d just going to stay in my room for the time being. T’challa already met her and gave her a phone.”

Still upset, but happy to see Nat regardless, he tried to get her to speak to him.

“What too you guys so long? And Nat, what happened?”

“Actually that’s something that we really needed to tell you. We were being followed by- “

An enormous rumble shook the foundation of the building, and a small shower of dust fell on them. Steve looked up, and the building trembled again.

Despite the misgivings, they all nodded and raced out of the office, only to barrel into, and then through a familiar body.

“Vision” was all Steve said by way of greeting.

Vision nodded, and a pulse shot out of his infinity gem.  The building shook once more, the rubble from above falling in larger chunks now, small holes revealing the floors above them.

Steve looked back at Vision, who was just staring at him.

In hopes of preventing any further fighting, Steve stared back before speaking.

“Vision what are you doing?”

“Well I was tracking Natasha. I thought she might end up with you eventually. Never did I expect to follow her here, however. I would not underestimate those two,” He said, pointing to Barton and Romanova, “They led me on quite the chase. Captain, why did you do this. No one trusts the Avengers anymore, and they are fighting out there, over you. I do not understand your actions.”

Steve had no good answer besides “I had to. He’s my best friend.”

“He is what is left of the man you once knew. You turned over nations for one man.”

“I didn’t have a choice. Do you know what Tony agreed to?”

Vision’s brow furrowed and for half a second he looked confused.

“They gave Wanda a death sentence. They were going to kill her, Vision.”

If an artificial body could, it appeared that Vision was going to cry. The AI’s fists clenched and his stare bored holes into Steve’s eyes.

“I got her out. Clint, Sam and Scott too. I know what I did was extreme, but it was the right thing to do.”

Vision blinked, and was unresponsive for a moment before looking back at Steve. In that moment, he saw a large number of Dora warriors behind the frozen man. Aneka was at the forefront, so he made eye contact with her and shook his head violently. They could work this out peacefully, if he tried.

“She is waking up today? Are those medical records true?”

Steve was surprised that Vision had acted so quickly, but nodded.

“Would you like to see her?”

Immediately, the AI tensed, and replied “No. She needs rest and friends. I think seeing me would not be beneficial to her at the time. I would, however, like to meet the King.” Abruptly, Vision turned and looked at the Dora assembled behind him.   
“Aneka, would you mind taking me to your leader?”

Behind him, Steve heard a soft snort from Clint and wondered what it was for. In front of him, Aneka nodded, and said “It is good to meet you. My king told me about you briefly. If it does not bother you, I will be sending my warriors up first to check on the building and to stand guard over the king. You have done some damage today.”

Vision nodded and walked over to the Warrior-Leader, who looked back at Steve.

He tried to nod convincingly, to reassure her that Vision could be trusted, for the most part. Her returning smile was through clenched teeth, and he realized that she was terrified. She knew what he was capable of, and that they had no defense against him, should the meeting go poorly.

Steve turned to look back at Natasha and Clint, both of whom were still extremely tense. Clint spoke first.

“So yeah that would be why we took so long getting back. Spent the whole time trying to lose him before heading back. Looks like the effort was wasted.”

Natasha just groaned and said “Steve, you have a bad habit of making things worse. You do realize that Vision may have some feelings for Wanda right? How is she supposed to heal if she’s spending her time trying to deal with him?”

Steve frowned. “Look I’ll make sure it won’t be a problem. I think preventing a full on attack from Vision was more important.”

Natasha still looked irritated, but shrugged and looked Clint, who nodded. They’d always done that, and he was glad to see that despite being on opposing sides, they still fell right back into their old friendship.

“We’re going to head back to my room. Go see Wanda.”

They walked off, leaving Steve to watch in silence as they faded from view. Their departure left Steve alone in the long hall, in sharp contrast to not even a minute ago, when it seemed that they were going to have to fight off the near invincible AI.

Steve took a deep breath and headed down to see Wanda once more. As he traveled back to the hospital he worked on relaxing his tense muscles. His mind was frazzled from the sharp twists in the day, but he worked on remaining calm. If he was going to face Wanda, he wanted it to be ready for whatever she might throw at him. His previous fears of her reaction to his presence returned, and he froze, standing outside of her door. He saw that the room was empty, and he wondered where Lang was.

Eventually he gathered his courage and opened the door. Wanda lay, sleeping in the bed. Her soft breaths seemed to fill the space, a welcome respite from the chaos of the last few minutes.

He sat on the chair beside her bed, and gently called out “Wanda?”

She stirred briefly and turned to face him.

She smiled blearily at him and said “….let me sleep….. longer….. Pietro. I am too tired”  

She turned back over, and still smiling, she slept on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry! I’ve never had such bad writers block before. I spent the last three weeks staring at the same sentence, trying to figure out what to say. Finally, I got a hang of it, and now here we are! I’m already working on the next two chapters, the one for the week I missed and the one for this week. We’ll be back on schedule soon. Thanks for the patience.


	15. Smile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: The song is by The Story So Far. Enjoy!

Steve wondered if he would be able to collect himself any time soon. The coming week was weighing on his mind, seeming to prevent much thought. In just a few days, Wanda’s recover would be complete. A few days after that would mark a full year passing since he had found Bucky again, hiding out in that old apartment (which, despite not wanting to admit is, had reminded him a lot of his first apartment when he moved out of his mother’s house).

In his seemingly interminable period of waiting, T’challa had asked nothing of him, which shocked Steve. Having lived with the man for nearly a year, and knowing the seer amount of resources the King had used on the growing team of enhanced people, and to not have to pay anything back had his head spinning. Surely T’challa wasn’t that kind? Perhaps he knew that for as long as Buck was under, Steve wouldn’t really be able to function well in a mission? Nevertheless, He’d had much free time to just spend looking to ways to fix his long-time friend, to no avail. Nearly a year had passed, and he was no closer to healing Buck than they were when he’d gone under.

While he was struggling with that, his team has slowly drifted away, each taking up things to do during their stay in the palace. Clint had requested a position on the security team for the palace. Despite much arguing on Steve’s part, T’challa had happily brought him onto the team, letting him run missions and work with the Dora Miliaje for general security. Scott was never around anymore either, but on that matter, T’challa was tight-lipped. He’d assured Steve that Lang was safe and that he was gone on his own request, but did not specify anything else, for what reason Steve could not figure out. He’d disappeared shortly after Vision had attacked, which led Steve to wonder if there was some correlation.

As for Vision himself, that was less of a mystery. After hearing about the exact nature of Wanda’s condition, and the reason behind it, the AI had been…. Well there was no other word for it. Vision had been furious. He’d demanded that T’challa aid him in attacking Tony and what remained of the Avengers. T’challa had, understandably, denied the request, but had a counter proposal. He did need eyes on the outside, able to gauge if, or when, an attack on Wakanda might occur. Vision had agreed that he would return to the Avengers Tower, and would henceforth be spying on the Avengers, and the council. He would relay the information back to T’challa directly, and give Tony a false lead on Natasha. Tony had sent Vision on the hunt for Natasha, but returning empty-handed would be difficult. T’challa had told him that if he went back, and told Tony that Natasha had somehow met up with Steve (which was, in a sense, true) but that he couldn’t figure out their location, it would be more believable than just showing up empty handed with a small shrug. That would lead to suspicion.

Having Vision out there to keep an eye out for him would be incredibly useful. Despite having no proof, Senator Ross was under the impression that Steve was hiding out with T’challa. His implications were growing louder and more convincing each day. Following each one was a political attack on Wakanda, and those were growing in strength each day. As of yet, T’challa had manage to maneuver out of each one, but it was growing clear that a physical attack was imminent.

This fact was worrying. Without foresight, it would be difficult to protect the people of Wakanda. Even with T’challa’s constant assurances that he and his country stood behind him, Steve knew that any spilled blood would be on his hands. Natasha’s words kept bouncing around in his head, every quiet moment interrupted by the harsh truth, “It is your fault, and yours alone”. Her words were the truest spoken, and she’d known, as she’d said them, what their impact would be.

Natasha’s presence herself had been lacking. Either she was actively avoiding him, or in times where they both were to meet T’challa, she intentionally ignored him. It was increasingly frustrating, and he wondered if there was more to the story than she was saying. ( _I don’t normally do this but Authors note! There was, of course, more to the story. I’ve been working on a story that follows Natasha and her POV from the end of civil war! I’ll be posting the first chapter soon. Sorry!!)_

Whatever the reason, it was more than evident that she was still angry with him, despite the many months they’d spent together since her rescue. He kept trying to think of what to say to her, to ease the tension between them. He knew that they might never be the same, and it pained him in the extreme.

As for Wanda…. She was doing well. Since she’d first woken up, she’d had moments where she was sure that she was a child again, still living with mom and dad and pietro. Those days were the worst, but each day her physical and mental health was improving. Given physical therapy, she’d regained her ability in its entirety to walk, and most days, she could even run. Her magic was occasionally troublesome.

It wasn’t that she was unable to use it, rather, it would grow in intensity and random abilities would flare whenever she was angry or sad. On the days when she reverted back to adolescence, the moment of realization as to who she really was sparked the worst of the magical outbursts. Despite all of this, she insisted that she had much better control over a lot of the finer details of the magic, as she’d been given the ability to train it. She refused to share, but seemingly overnight she’d discovered some underlying truth about what she could do, and whatever it was, she was able to control her magic with ease.

Steve was impressed with the young witch. Despite being only 20 or so, she was much more in control of her emotions, regardless of the hardships she’d endured, and had come out with more intensity and discipline than anyone he’d ever known.

And yet, even with all of the changes, Steve still felt static. He knew the source. Bucky, still tucked away, was unchanging, and Steve knew that in all reality, that which mattered the most had not changed, and thus, he found himself unable to change. Time and time again he brooded on the situation, theorizing ways to unfreeze Buck, each as unlikely as the last. Eventually, even thinking of Bucky exhausted him, and Wanda seemed to notice this.

“Steve, please. What is bothering you so?” She asked one morning, only a few days away from her official medical release.

He just shrugged, his usual response to the question. Previously, she’d been too tired, or too distracted to really press the matter, but with her typical fire returned, she demanded answers.

“I am worried. When we were little, Pietro used to brood, much like you Steve Rogers. Please, tell me what you are so worried about.”

Again, he tried to brush the question away with a quick “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

She frowned at him.

“I do not like this new person in front of me. The Steve I knew was brave. He would have said what was on his mind, not hide away in his own head, too afraid to share his feelings.”

Steve bristled at that. Who was she to say he had changed, that he was not brave? A small frown set on his lips, but he decided to answer her.

“Ahhh, damn.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Now I know you are not Steve Rogers. He never would resort to curses to avoid answering. What a shame. I will miss him greatly.”

Even though he was more than aware that she was manipulating him, he couldn’t help but get irritated with her.

“Fine. I can’t figure out a way to get Bucky out of cryostasis.”

She blinked at him slowly, as if she did not understand what he was saying.

“Steve I do not know what you are talking about.”

“Bucky decided as soon as we got here that he was too dangerous. Since the code words are still in his head, anyone who did enough digging would be able to control him at the drop of a dime. He was dangerous, so they put him under, to keep everyone safe. He can’t come out until we figure out how to remover the code words.”

She blinked rapidly, and was silent for the longest period of his life. She was silent so long that he’d returned to reading, and had actually forgotten that he’d divulged his worries on Bucky’s situation.

Her voice, soft and cautious called out.

“Steve.” He looked up to see her smiling broadly. Still cautious, she said “I think I know what I can do to help.” Her fingers lit up, dancing red sparks, just her usual magic playing on the tips of her fingers. “I have much control of this side of me now. If you both agree, I think that I can go into his head, and remove the words.”

Steve’s heart stopped. Was it possible? Could she really do something so complex, and just out of the kindness of her heart?

“I do not like reminding you of this, but it will be no harder than what I did when I was working with Ultron. Then I simply grabbed your teammates worst memory and forced them to see it. For you, I gave you what you wanted to see and took it away. I am sorry every day for this, and I think that I can forgive myself if I do this for you. Please, let us wake Bucky and ask him if he will let me in his head. I will do nothing more than what he says, this I promise.

Steve was in shock. He stood, frozen, wondering if he could let himself believe that what the witch said was true. He stood still so long that he did not even hear the door open. It was only the strong voice of Natasha that called him out of the shell he was hiding in.

“Steve? What are you doing, just standing there?” She cocked an eyebrow at him, indicating that yes, she wanted a response.

“Wanda… Bucky….???” Were the only words he’d managed to get out before she walked over to him. He barely registered the fact that he was still standing in Wanda’s room, but she was nowhere to be found and the lights were dimmed.

Natasha’s grip was surprisingly gentle as she forced him to sit down in the chair behind him. He fell easily, as pliable as Play-Doh.

“Steve, I need you to tell me what’s wrong?” He only shook his head, still trying not to let himself give into hope. He knew if he said the words, they would be true.

“Okay. Then can I talk to you? I’ve wanted to for a few days now.”

He’d responded with a small shrug, still barely listening to her.

“I’m sorry.”

His mind snapped back into place. She was still looking at him. Never before had he heard her apologize. Her actions were always so deliberate, she always meant what she said, so to say sorry, was to admit that she’d done something wrong.

He stared at her, wondering if she would say more. Hoping she would say more.

“I shouldn’t have told you it was your fault. It may be true, but I should not have said it. I was too angry, and lost control for a moment. And for that, I apologize.”

He forced himself to look up, his own distress fading back for a moment to take in her words. He forced a smile and said “It’s okay Nat. You were right to say it.”

She shook her head, but returned the smile, before she really registered that he still wasn’t there.

She sighed and said “As my first act of friendship, I’m going to beat the shit out of you until you tell me what’s on your mind, and why you are just standing in Wanda’s living room, alone.”

Steve couldn’t find the words to really explain, so he raised his hand as if to say “just a moment” hesitated, and just waited for the right thing to say to pop into his head. She waited patiently, quietly shuffling to his side to sit down on the couch with him. They sat together for a while, the only sound was their measured breaths, filling the room. Eventually he figured that he had to say something, and forced out the words “Wanda asked me what was wrong today.”

She waited, saying nothing, just letting him speak in his own time.

“I told her about Bucky, and why she hadn’t seen him around. Cause, you know… where he is. I told her why he decided to stay there. She…. She said something I’m too scared to believe.”

She nodded wisely and said “Steve it’s the twenty first century. People will understand.”

He stared at her bewildered. “What will they understand? They already proved to me that they don’t understand the concept of messing with someone’s memories, and that’s why he can’t come out. He’s too dangerous. They don’t understand, Nat. I don’t get why they don’t understand.”

Her eyes widened, and she gave a small, easy laugh. “Yeah I guess not, huh? So what did she say?”

He chewed on his lip, terrified that if he said the words out loud, they would be real. That if she couldn’t do it, He’d loose Bucky for what seemed like the millionth time. But if it was real….

“She said she could fix him. She said it might even be easy for her. That she would ask him first, which means that no matter what, he’s going to be around, at least for some time.”

Natasha, who rarely let her actual emotions show through, smiled at him, the widest, most genuine smile he’d seen on her face since Ultron.

“Steve I believe Wanda can do it. All Bucky has to do is agree. He could be back by your side.”

He just shrugged. “I just…”

“It’s alright Steve. Look, its nearly 2 in the morning. Go back to your room, get some sleep, and when morning comes, we’ll all get together and talk to T’challa. We’ll wake Bucky up, this time for good.”

He still sat, unmoving, until she held out her hand. The old-fashioned gesture reminded him of his time, and he took it, standing up. She kept holding on to his hand, and led him to the door of Wanda’s apartment.

“Sleep. I will come get you in the morning.”

He stumbled out of the apartment, and across the hall to his rooms.

As his head hit the pillow, he had a final question lingering on his mind.

_Why was Natasha in Wanda’s room at 2 am?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY! Yep, back on schedule. Look for another chapter this week in penance haha.   
> IN OTHER NEWS: I am in the process of writing another story! Pretty please, check it out. Its a sister piece to this one, just focusing on Natasha's point of view. You can get some of her secrets, the reason that she acts the way she does. I won't cover it pretty much at all in this story. Check it out pretty please! It'll be updating on Saturdays, so if you're super interested in the story line here, you'll get two updates a week. Exciting, right?


	16. Glacial Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Not even remotely linked to the MCU but honestly I feel like with all the cryostasis Bucky’s been in, he has pretty cold blood so the song Glacial Blood is like his theme song for me. It’s by Ageless Oblivion. Enjoy the chapter!

A fluttering of eyelids, a small gasp of breath. Another…. _gasp gasp gasp,_ watching the man in front of him slowly stir into unconsciousness.

At some point, it occurred to Steve that this was likely the first time that Buck had been allowed to wake up in his own time. HYDRA wasn’t known for their kindness, and he doubted they’d let him wake up so slowly. Before he could stop himself, he started imagining the times they’d woken him up. He wondered if Bucky would be expecting pain when he awoke.

He wondered if he’d be triggered back into the winter soldier by the same process of awakening from when he was still under HYDRA’s control.

He had plenty of time to wonder now, as it was clear that the man was going to take his time. A full year of sleep must weigh on the human body in odd ways.

After he’d had a minor breakdown in Wanda’s living room, he’d slept for nearly a day, the first time in months of no sleep. Despite all he said, his new body did still require sleep, even if he constantly denied himself that luxury. Once he’d awoken, he’d rushed back to Wanda’s room, only to stand in front of the door for nearly an hour, unsure again.

Natasha was right, as usual, but he was still afraid. Afraid of Wanda not being able to do it, afraid that she would change Bucky so radically that he would no longer be himself, afraid that she would accidently kill Bucky, afraid that Bucky would turn down the offer, afraid that all would go well and Bucky would be by his side again.

The last fear was the strongest, and he could not pinpoint the reason for this. All reason told him he should be excited. His gut said that he should be afraid, and his heart told him that he did not deserve Bucky, and Bucky would wake up knowing this and would leave voluntarily.

Yet, as he’d stood there, he heard a low laugh from behind him.

It was, of course, Natasha. She smiled an off-putting smile, as if she were actually smiling at him, rather than just the usual “you-want-me-to-smile-so-I-will” sort of things.

“Are you ever going to knock?”

Steve rolled his eyes, and just to prove a point, he’d knocked, grinning at Nat all the while.

Her grin got even larger as the door flew open to a still-thin Wanda. She smiled at him too, although hers was always genuine and warm.

“Can… do…. Ah...”

Words escaped Steve. Surely, humans had come up with words, right?

Wanda’s smile only got bigger then and she laughed lightly.

“Steve please do not worry so. I will go with you to talk to the king. Maybe we can get Mr. Barnes out today, no?”

She grabbed his arm, and with just the smallest, knowing smile at Natasha, she pulled him towards the elevator.

As usual, she seemed preoccupied with the architecture of the Palace. Steve could not find interest in steel beams and glass, but Wanda never failed to be captivated by the vaulted ceilings and the endless windows, overlooking scenes of beauty he could not seem to appreciate. At first, when Wanda had awoken, she could not stop asking questions about the building, and at some point, she’d even gotten a tablet from T’challa specific to the layout of the Palace.

Eventually, he interest faded into the background as muscle therapy came to the foreground. She’d worked non-stop at regaining all she had lost in her time in prison. Despite it only being a few months, she’d lost so much being strapped down twenty-four seven, and returning her body to its once abnormally fit shape was beyond difficult for Steve to watch, let alone for Wanda to do.

Nevertheless, she’d advanced quickly, filling her left over hours with practicing her magic, an aspect that had gone poorly for a while. She never gave the reason, but for whatever mystery reason, she had less control, and could no longer work with it as well as she once had.

He and Natasha both had tried all in their power to help her through, spending countless hours with her as she’d taken impossibly slow steps, and lifted the tiniest 1 pound weights, all the way through to being able to run ag a decent pace and lift nearly 50 pounds. All that time, Natasha had never once spoken to him, always watching Wanda with an eagle eye that never faltered.

Despite being there to help Wanda constantly, he never grew tired of the young witch. Prior to their fight with Tony, he’d, of course, worked with her, and talked with her. But they had never been close, her always floating at the edges, too independent to really necessitate intense focus.

But now that the focus was on her, he could not help but notice that she had a fierce streak a mile wide, passion for everything, and an intensity that he rarely saw. All in all, he found that by leaving her on the wayside he’d cheated himself of an excellent friendship. He’d stuck by her, despite Natasha’s hostility, and just kept her moving along.

On the day of the meeting with T’challa, she’d brought that intensity and friendship. T’challa had been intensely against her using her powers on the winter soldier. There was no telling what might spark an episode, what might trigger him back into the killer he could be. She’d insisted that it would be easy, and that she could remove the original trigger and look for more, and remove those if they existed.

After an agonizing hour of arguments, T’challa had finally given in, and had given the order to release Bucky.

 

_Gasp…gasp…. Gaaaaaaaaaassssspppp._

The sudden change in breathing made Steve focus back on Bucky. His eyes were rolling around under his eyelids, flicking side to side, up and down. Steve got the feeling that the dream was not pleasant, but he couldn’t bring himself to rouse the sleeping man.

He could hardly bring himself to watch the man longer than periods of a few seconds before his eyes would fall to the floor again.

Steve’s eyes flicked back up to Bucky when his breathing evened out. The creases of worry that had adorned Buck’s cheeks were fading back now, receding back, leaving the face of man he might have known, over half a century ago.

Bucky’s eyes flickered. Steve stiffened, and watched warily, all muscles tense, just waiting.  Bucky’s eyes fluttered open for just a moment and Steve heard a long groan push out of Bucky’s lips.

Steve bolted.

He ran from the room, terrified, of what, he didn’t know. He ran as fast as he could, up enough flights of stairs to reach his floor, and back into the safety of his room.

He found himself inside his rooms faster than he could have imagined.

A long groan pushed past his lips this time, and he ran a hand through his hair.

He had no idea what had just happened, but he knew one thing:

Bucky was terrifying in a way he’d never been before, not even as the Winter Soldier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and FINALLY WE HAVE BUCKY!! This is just a teaser chapter, sorry! It may be a day or two late, but next weeks chapter is doing to be huge. I have over 5000 words for it so far, with no end in sight and no stopping points... so you know.... look for that!


	17. Author's Updates

Okay _holy shit_

I've been gone for so long oh my god.

Explanation 1: university. I'm in my third year, and this bullshit getting very _very_ difficult.....I am pre medical, and I'm taking the MCAT soon, so stress levels are through the fucking roof.

Anyways so the other big reason why I left was actually people bringing up a really good point. If you look at the Stucky tag, here or on tumblr, is it 99.9% female produced. As a female, it can be very difficult to properly and adequately handle men-loving-men ships in a realistic way, and I really prefer to just avoid doing anything that might be negative. So I stopped writing, because the last thing I want to do is be insensitive to mlm, and the various ships that are mlm.

But I ended up having several conversations with a number of mlm who told me the ins and outs of what's acceptable, and I took it in stride. It didn't change the plot I had planned for the story whatsoever.... they were actually pretty damn okay with the styles and plot point I'd chosen. After a couple of weeks, I found myself thinking about the storyline again, and started writing chapters in my head again. 

So you see where this is going right?

It's best put as: I'm back.

If you haven't forgotten about this story (which I wouldn't have blamed you for) I will be updating again. Sporadically at best, with absolutely no schedule, but it'll get out there. 

If you're new: god you dodged a like 5 month break good for you

 EDIT 2: okay wow! So.... I am now on the path for having a lot more free time and I'm really hoping to get back to this story. I make no promises, and I know its been like literally a year since I've written for this but HOPEFULLY I have some more time to write for this story. I am going to see Black Panther tonight, and I'm really excited to see how the movie might affect my story here! I may end up tagging this with canon divergence if my story diverges too far from what is shown (esp since I'm getting a good look into MCU Wakanda). My biggest issue is that I was using the comics and the personalities from the comics rather than the movies, because when I started this, there was no introductions to Wakanda, apart from the two minute scene at the end of Civil War. Ipso facto, I can't guarantee that this story will remain as a "plausible outcome" of Civil War. Additional updates: I've been nursing an idea for a story in this same timeline/universe for one of my favorite pairs, Scarlet Widow (Scarlet Witch/ Black Widow). But again, it all depends on my time and schedule, although I can say that that particular story might feel a lot more organic, as obviously I am a wlw so it will make writing a romance much, much easier. In conclusion: I know that I stated before that I would be back, and this is a second update, from like another year in the future. This is an update to say I MAKE NO PROMISES about any sort of update schedule, but I might be posting more here and there. And if I do decide to not write anymore, I will post a summary for how I had intended the story to go. Either way, you should be hearing from me again, within the next month, if not the next few weeks. 

I want to give a huge thank you to the people who have been requesting me to write more, you guys are actually the reason I came back at all! I never thought anyone would actually read this... so much love to y'all. 

PLEASE, please please! If you are interested in reading more from this, let me know! Its super encouraging to receive messages or to read comments, even if you just say write more, its a huge boost to my creativity and will to write more. 

Love you guys! 

-Prongs

 

 


	18. Ode to Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve actually fuckin talks to his therapist (god forbid, of course)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew it's been a hot minute since I've written for this story. Doubt anyone is still checking up on it, but I'm happy to return to these fuckers.

       The next hour found Steve hyperventilating in the furthest corner of his room, as far from Bucky as physically possible. He tried everything he knew to calm himself down, but really it seemed there was no end in sight. His fears over Bucky, and everything that was going to occur were overwhelming, mixing into a crescendo of pure fear, something he’d never felt before. Gone was the happiness he’d expected to feel when he would be able to speak to Buck again.

He’d hoped, of course, that everything could just go back to normal, that he would be able to slide back into an easy friendship with the only person on the planet who might be able to understand some of the deeper parts of himself. The only person on the planet who knew who he was before everything. Before the time skip, before the war, before the serum.

       The first time he’d realized who the Winter Soldier was, his heart had swelled with the knowledge that not everyone was lost to him. And once Peggy had slipped through his fingers, he’d wanted to fall into Bucky, force him to understand how much he meant to Steve, force him to understand that it was just the two of them. No Howling Commandos, no Peggy, no family for either of them. Time had gone on, leaving them as substantial ghosts, relics of a time people romanticized, forgetting that it had troubles beyond most comprehension.

     He wanted to force Bucky to understand that he was worth everything, and that Steve had known exactly what he was doing, exactly what he would have to give up. He knew damn well what was going to happen. He couldn’t have known how much it would change his person, however. He couldn’t have known that it would dredge up every terrible memory, every haunting feeling from the past, and that it would render him a shell of a man. Something that he couldn’t bare for Bucky to see. After all, Buck had lived all these years, had handled this, and so much more. Bucky had been able to come out of much, much worse circumstances, damaged for sure, but an even better person than when they’d both left for the war. Bucky had survived himself, and his situations, and had still been able to be the best of himself.

       This astounded Steve, but left him with the usual, if deeper, feeling of worthlessness. He couldn’t understand why Buck still cared for him. There was no real rhyme or reason, but he knew, somewhere inside himself, that Buck still cared for him. He just…didn’t feel worthy? Which, once again, astounded Steve. He could not fathom how Buck did not see his own worth, or how it was Steve, not Bucky was the one who did not deserve the other. 

      In the end, it was that Buck just didn’t understand. He was afraid that by removing whatever had damaged him, Buck would see, really see, himself, and would finally really see Steve. He’d see what they were both worth, and he’d leave for good. Steve would let him go this time.

     It was that fear, the fear of a Bucky who understood, the fear of losing him, for good, paralyzed him. For a time, he sat against the wall, just breathing in and out, trying to regain something resembling composure. This proved difficult.

Somehow, in all of it, he managed a single, loud thought “Wanda please!”

     He tried to scream it mentally, hoping that she was not already with Buck, that she might, on some off chance, hear him and be able to quiet his mind. Natasha was good for hearing what you wanted to, but no one soothed him like Wanda. He did not know what it was about her magic, or perhaps it was just some innate quality of hers. There was just something about the pale, frail girl that gave him comfort in moments like these, where he could not bear to think, but could not find sleep.

    She had come running as she always did. Wanda burst through the door, looking fierce and when she saw his motionless pose, her face softened. There was no pity, no anger, no irritation. It was clear to him in that moment that she was finally on the mend since Pietro's death, and that she was beginning to look alive again. He wondered briefly at the cause, and it this very quality that set him at ease. So often he got caught up in the struggles of others and was able to ignore his on for a few moments.

She sat down on the floor beside him and leaned her head against his shoulder. And without a single spark of red magic, she had wrapped his mind up in an artificial calm, and had laid with him for hours, until he could move again. Even then, when the fear was completely sedated, and he could use his limbs once more, he asked her to stay, even if it was because a small selfish part of him said that if she was here, Buck would still be asleep. She obliged him. 

His thoughts still in a whirl, trying to keep her here, to keep Bucky asleep, he tried to speak

"Wanda please… I need you to take this away from me. I need you to tell me why I am so afraid. ”

She shook her head, irritated now.

“Steve if I do that, you will not believe me. You will still believe that I am telling you what you want to hear. I cannot help you except by staying with you.”

Steve shook his head, sifting through the fears and anxiety enough to manage

“If I wanted to hear something, I would go to Nat, not to you. I know you won’t do that to me. Wanda please”

      She sighed, a single red spark flying from her fingertips, and a sigh escaped her lips as he lowered the barriers around his mind. After a few seconds, her eyes flew open suddenly, and she stared at him for a moment. An excited giggle escaped her lips before she clamped them shut. Suddenly exhausted, Steve couldn’t be bothered to wonder what she was laughing at. He knew it was probably just her realizing what a mess he was.

 Another few sparks flew before she shut her eyes and unraveled her hold on him, only to pinch the bridge between her nose.

“Steve. Bucky isn’t going to leave just because you aren’t at your best right now. He didn’t leave when you had pneumonia thirty million times, and he won’t leave now.”

A small whoosh of breath left Steve as her words hit like a series of blows from Mjolnir.

“I mean no offense of course, but it appears to me that you’ve always been a bit of a mess Steve. It will not deter him now. I am going to speak to him, however. I want him to know exactly where you are right now, and make sure that does not change anything.”

That did it, and his fear escaped him, and a real calm settled over him. Her words were simple, but he was a simple man. He knew, somewhere deep, that Buck wasn’t actually going to leave. The man was far too kind, and would find something to stick around for, even if it was out of pity.

All too soon, she stood and stuck out her hand, offering to pull him up. He offered her a wan smile in return and stood up without her help. Shaking out his tense muscles, he asked her to walk with him back to Buck’s room. She nodded in agreement, but as they walked back to hospital wing of the palace, she watched him closely, a hint of mirth on her lips all the while.

Once they’d reached the elevator, she decided to speak.

“Steve I am thinking I am going to talk to Bucky without you. I want him to make the decision for himself, and not for you. I am hoping that this is okay?”

A pinch of fear gripped him again, and her face crinkled again. Steve just nodded numbly. It was Bucky's choice, after all, whether he wanted to let the witch twin in his head. Steve could not begrudge him this choice, and he did not want Buck's pity for him to be a factor in the decision. She was right. 

She sighed, and nodded.

“Thank you Steve. He will be understanding, I think.”

As the elevator doors opened, revealing the empty compartment, hidden so well behind ordinary doors, she smiled and waved at him. A small spark of red flashed in her eyes, and he lost control of his limbs once more, this time due to her magic. He grimaced as he found himself walking towards Doc Samson’s rooms. Irritation colored his thoughts, knowing that he couldn’t really control where he was going at this point.

     He gave in, and carried himself quickly towards the psychiatrist’s office of sorts. The way was familiar to him, as he had kept his end of the deal. He went twice a week, as appointed, even though he just spent his time reading from the expanse of knowledge available to him. His sessions were much shorter ever since Wanda had woken up, mostly because Steve had been loath to leave her at any point, fearing for her health, and wanting to make sure that she was never lonely.

She’d had problems even in the avengers compound with this. She’d once confided in him, telling him that she had not been alone for her entire life, her brother practically sewn to her side. After losing him, she was trying to adjust to some kind of silence. Pietro's thoughts had always been completely open to her, and she spent most of her days listening to his stream of consciousness.  She'd said then, that it was a very empty sensation, to be alone. She’d spent as much time with the others as she could, because of this. He knew that her imprisonment had not changed this, and given that everyone else was busy, he spent the time with her. He could not let her in his mind, as her twin had, but just standing by her, a physical presence to sate her need for company. 

     Given this, he’d tried to spread out his learning, to move past history, despite only getting to the sixties. He’d tried to move on to sciences and mathematics, subjects he’d loathed in school, but had recently seemed to gain an ease and importance that struck Steve. Today, however, was a frustrating and intense day, and on days like that he preferred history. It rang true to him, and always seemed to give him a reassurance unavailable elsewhere. History was immutable, and it only took a bit of digging to get the whole story, to really understand all the why’s and how’s of the world’s timeline.

     He entered the room, not even bothering to knock, as Doc Samson had insisted on an open door policy. As it turned out, the Doc wasn’t in the room, so he pulled a book off the shelf on his own and sat down to read. This one was a book on social revolutions. He’d already read his way through the sixties and was now into the seventies. The particular chapter he was reading was difficult to get through, as it covered homosexuality, and the AIDs epidemic.

He struggled through it, trying to remind himself that it was significantly more normal now. It was the same process he’d faced upon learning that segregation was no longer enforced (an institution he’d hated anyway), and that women filled the workforce in equal number to men (an institution he greatly enjoyed, as he could only remember how hard Peggy had fought for it). It was a struggle to force past his more old-fashioned thought processes, but he trudged on. This seemed to be a bad idea. Reading about the AIDs epidemic caused his vision to go red. He knew first hand that it was disconcerting to have your world beliefs torn up and thrown out, but he also knew that there was no reason for folks to act like that. He kept on, growing more and more irritated, surprising even himself about how worked up he was getting. He deemed it a great injustice and couldn’t seem to pull himself away from the history book.

Finally, nearly 100 pages later, the doc swept in, and took one look at Steve’s face before laughing.

“What bit of history are you reading now? I’m guessing 60’s? You seem like a civil rights kind of guy.”

Steve shook his head, and replied “No it’s the 70’s. The AIDs epidemic. You know they had actual die-ins?”

The Doc’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “The gay rights movement? Yes, I knew about that. The atrocities that occurred there rivaled many other civil rights movements.”

Steve shut the book and stared up at the Doc, who seemed surprised that Steve was actually in the mood for a full conversation.

“What do you think about it all?”

“What the gay rights movements? I think people are people, regardless of orientation and ought to be treated as such. It is not really a debate anymore, Steve.”

He grimaced and said “No not that. I meant my place in history. Where I fit in to everything. I feel like I missed so much, and I will never be able to catch up.”

“Rogers, it is important you know that everyone feels like that. It is not just part of being a super soldier stuck in time. Many people feel as though they have missed out, as though the are slower than everyone else. Many people have told me about how they feel like the world moves much faster than they can.”

Steve clutched onto this fact with interest, and a touch of desperation. Maybe he was not so alone.

Doc Samson continued on “I am glad to see that you are here. Do you want to talk about why?”

“Not particularly. Look, I really do appreciate the help, but I don’t need a shrink. I’d rather just stick to the usual routine”

But the doc refused to accept his reluctance this time.

“Rogers, please. Wanda tells me that you keep calling for her. Using her abilities as a bandaid when you don’t want to think.”

Steve shrunk away from the insinuation behind the words. _"Using her"_ , the doc had said. The pangs of guilt wracked through him, as they often did when he thought of Wanda. She was far too good to him, considering all he put her through. And yet here he was, inflicting worse pain on her.

“She comes to see me too, you know? And willingly, I might add” he continued. 

That was no surprise to Steve. She was in a better place that he. Despite the horrors inflicted on her, time and time again, she was still trying to grow, to be better. Why could he not do the same? Why did he fight so hard against recovery?

“Well I imagine that the idea of recovery scares you, doesn’t it?”

Steve started, realizing he must have stated his question aloud.

“It doesn’t scare me” he argued, defensive now.

“Oh but doesn’t it? It scares many people. Its a fear of who you are, right? No one wants to confront the worst parts of themselves.”

Steve frowned again, feeling that the Doc had missed the point, something completely unusual for him.

“It’s not that. Its…”

He paused for a long moment, his mind flitting to Wanda and Bucky, who must surely be awake by now. He regretted not being there to speak with Bucky.

Samson’s eyes were all too bright, too invested. Steve realized this was the most they had spoken in the year since he had started these sessions, and it was no wonder that he was far too interested in the conversation. Steve was finally giving something of himself, and the shrink was practically giddy with enthusiasm. Part of him wanted to be petty, to stop talking, but he thought of Wanda again, and how he’d been using her.

     His guilt spilled forth in the form of an explanation then. “It’s not that I am afraid of confronting my worst qualities. I am aware of those. It’s that this sickness has been with me for so long. I have done my best to push back against the sickness in the past, but it has always been with me, ever since I thought I’d lost Buck forever. I still went on missions. When I awoke, I didn’t speak of him. I just let that part of my head rot, refusing to address it. It became such a part of me, only intensified by Peggy’s passing. And then losing Buck again, after having him back for such a brief time. It started rotting me from the inside out.” “But by the time I was forced to addressed the problem, it was such a part of me that to cut it out, to cut out the rotted parts of me felt like I would lose myself entirely. I am afraid to lose this, what has become such a part of me. I need it to continue.”

     As he spoke, the Doc's facial expression changed from his previous eagerness to a controlled expression of polite interest, as though this was not altogether interesting. Steve had known Natasha long enough to know that it was fake, but one that was put on for his benefit. If the shrink had seemed too interested, Steve would have lost his nerve. He shuddered a bit, now feeling warm. Too warm, overheated from his mental exertions. It felt like a reoccuring theme in his life, hot and cold.

But the Doc seemed to be waiting for something. “Sorry Doc. Did you say something?”

“I asked you why you think that it is so much of your personality?”

“It just is.”

“It is not, Rogers. It is a sickness, like pneumonia. It is not who you are, it is preventing you from becoming the person you are supposed to be.”

Steve couldn’t manage more than a shrug. His mind, always too fast had left the conversation, desperate to avoid this topic. He was no longer with the Doc, his thoughts were lingering back with the bed he’d lived in for so long. Days like today made his body ache.

He did not want to think of Bucky or Wanda, or the damage he had done. He wanted to escape, the warmth of overexertion too hot.

He stood suddenly, but the Doc seemed unsurprised, and he simply gestured to the door, with a quick “I hope we will continue this conversation later, when you are able to”.

The pull towards his bed was calling, promising a cool release from the warm expanse of pain and fear for the future. But before he could even make it a foot down the hall, he saw all to familiar red sparks, and was knocked to his feet.

“Steve Rogers where do you think you are going?” came the accented, angry voice from behind him.

The irritation warred deeply with his guilt. He wanted to avoid her, to avoid Buc- nope.  He refused to think the name. Surely neither would want to see him right now.

     But that did not explain why she would be calling for him to stop. His fears returned with a whole new set of fears and sadness. What if she had seen what he had put Bucky through? If she had already sifted through his memories, she would have seen how often he failed his partner in crime, how he had almost killed his best friend that day on the train, and so often since, in his many interactions with the Winter Soldier. Surely she would hate him, as Bucky ought to. Perhaps she wanted to yell at him.

     Rather than respond, he simply stayed put, refusing to look up as he heard her light, quick footsteps approaching.

“I have been waiting for you as James wants to speak with you. He had been hoping to speak to you when he woke up again.”

“Not James. Its Bucky.”

“ I know. I just wanted to hear you say his name.” She said with a hint of exasperation. What was irritating her?

Steve growled at this. His disbelief that she was not angry with him was warring with his need for information.

“He is doing well. He is still sluggish, still feels frozen. Please, Steve. He wants to see you, and he is not allowed to leave the room.”

“Did you…..?”

“No. He consented, but I want a few days to prepare and to talk with him before I dive right in. I will be forced to examine every single memory he has, in order to be sure that I have removed all of his triggers. This is not something to be done lightly.”

Steve anxious mind was momentarily put out by the notion. He understood the necessity, of course, but up until then, he had been the one to know Buck the best. This procedure would award that title to Wanda. He let the pettiness consume him for a moment before he returned his thoughts to Wanda.

    Finally he looked up at the young woman, and saw that she had a patiently exasperated look on her face.

He muttered “Buck wants to see me?”

“Yes, you fool. Come, stand up, and let us go see him.”

Steve let out a groan, but knew that it was entirely possible that she would force him to go, whether he wanted to or not. So, with yet another groan, he stood, not entirely sure if he could face this man, this man who had been through so much, who had lost so much because of Steve.

Even if he had not been angry with Steve before reentering cryo, it would not surprise Steve if Buck was angry with him. Maybe he would not have wanted to been woken up? What if he had wanted to stay in cryo? Surely he would blame Steve, and his blind hope in Wanda. But as they walked towards the room where Bucky stayed, it felt as though he was being chilled, as if each step froze a layer of guilt off of him. As if he knew, deep down, that Bucky would not blame him.

By the time they opened the door, and Steve locked eyes with the damaged man who had lost so much, and he was raw once more, no longer afraid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so Steve thinks he's the biggest asshole to exist, and refuses to see reason on the matter. NEXT CHAPTER WILL ACTUALLY INVOLVE INTERACTION ugh so much world building. Whatever.


End file.
